


The Gotham Rogues

by IndiSmile, RK3996



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kinda figuring it out as it goes along, Mob story, More tags will be added as it goes along, References to Drugs, lots of characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndiSmile/pseuds/IndiSmile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RK3996/pseuds/RK3996
Summary: A Batman story focusing on various people and characters as the Bat becomes known to Gotham.Essentially, it's a Year One kind of deal where the mobs of Gotham, who will be getting a lot of focus, start to lose their grip on Gotham as the more insane elements of the DC universe begin to encroach on their city.





	1. Crazy-Eye Jack

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Alrighty, so, I'm trying something a bit new here. I'm a big fan of the Batman comics, so I'm going to take a shot at writing what is essentially my own version of the mythos and stuff, drawing on various sources such as the comics and various tv series. Here's hoping it turns out alright.

**Chapter 1**

_Alright, alright, so, this is gonna be a story I’m sure everybody here has all heard well over a hundred times. The story of Gotham City’s Golden Couple: Thomas and Martha Wayne. Hey, hey, sit down! I’m telling a tale here! I don’t interrupt you, do I? ...Look, just shut up and let me tell the damn story._

_Right, so, the Waynes. One of Gotham’s oldest, richest families. The Waynes have been on the top of the heap through thick and thin, always staying one step above every crook, bootlegger, and mobster that wanted their golden heads on some silver platters. And good old Tommy boy was the pinnacle of that “rich guy that actually does stuff” ideal. The president and CEO of Wayne Enterprises, plus being a world-renowned surgeon in his own right, the man did his very damndest to try to help fix the absolute shithole we all call home. Y’know, when he wasn’t busy with that whole “life of endless luxury” bullshit._

_Speaking of luxury, let’s talk about the good wifey of Tommy-boy, Missus Martha Wayne, originally Martha Kane. The Kanes are like the Waynes, but with a “K’ and minus the “y”, and multimillionaires instead of billionaires. They also had more of a thing for industrial chemicals instead of medical equipment, plane parts, electronics, military hardware, and all that other crap all the Wayne companies make. Course, Roddy Kane sold all that to Ace Chemicals in favor of buying stocks or something, but hey, they were still richer than hell itself._

_So, rich boy and rich girl meet in college, have a whirlwind romance, got a nice thing going down and pop out a kid a few years later: Little Brucie Wayne. Things go great for the Waynes; they expand business through Gotham County, Tommy does his surgeon thing while Martha runs the company, and they get to soothe their guilty consciences with all their charities. Least for a little while._

_Then comes one fateful night, October twenty-fifth, about fourteen years ago now. Tommy, Mar-Mar and Brucie head out to Monarch Theater for a grand showing of...uh. Shit, what was it... Shut up Bob, I’m thinking here-Zorro! It was Zorro. They went out to see Zorro, which was showing in theaters for some reasons, they’re rich, they can do whatever, and they headed home for the night. And then Tommy does the stupidest thing he could’ve possibly done._

_He took his wealthy, white, old-money family down an alleyway in Gotham. At night. While it was raining! So the dumbass with more privilege than survival instinct leads his pretty wife and little boy down the dark alleyway and, low and behold, the moron runs right into a mugger._

_Any of you remember Joey Chill? Druggy dumbass in debt to Boss Moxon? Yeah, you know who I mean. Well, the stupid bastard ran right into the richest man in town, and got the bright idea that Tommy boy should share his money with the less fortunate, meaning the tweaked out nut with a revolver babbling in front of him._

_Now, people are split on what happened next. Some say Tommy tried to talk to the stupid bastard, tried to convince him to see the light or some shit. Others say he went right for it, swinging a fist at poor old Joey. Still others say the guy just tried to protect his wife, even gave Joey his wallet. But Joey didn’t just want the wallet. He wanted Martha’s pearls. Now that, everybody knows._

_Because that’s why poor Martha got a bullet in the gut, then one in the tit and another in the throat. Course, Tommy went down too. Two in the lungs, one in the eye. Popped like a cherry. And so, Tommy and Mar-Mar bled out in that alleyway, drowning in their own blood while poor Brucie watched on, horrorstruck._

_Chill panicked, of course. Flew like a bat outta hell. Outta the blood-soaked hell that alleyway became, clutching his ill-gotten pearls to his heart as though they’d save him. Poor Brucie though, stayed behind, in there with his bleeding heart parents. Cops came along eventually, picked up the newly orphaned brat and turned him over to his fancy British butler, who definitely didn’t spoil the brat rotten, while future-Captain, then-Lieutenant Jimmy Gordon, that smug prick, took over the investigation._

_Joey Chill went down eventually, tried to pawn the pearls like a complete moron, and Brucie vanished from public view. Poor little Richie Rich barely showed up in public until back in January. All that therapy must’ve been time consuming. He came out of that alleyway a changed boy, seeking thrills and living the high life so he doesn’t have to think about his poor butchered parents, while Joey Chill came out of it a broken man, whimpering and whining until he got outta Blackgate and vanished back into the dark. But those two, the orphan and the crook, weren’t the only ones to come outta that blood-soaked alley._

_No, there was something far worse born that night. Y’see, Thomas and Martha’s blood blended together in that alley. The sheer bullshit_ injustice _of their murders, at the hands of a common crook no less, mixed with the rage of two parents that’ll never see their child grow and brought forth something vile in there. A bloody beast of vengeance and hate, ripping free of that pool of blood and brain matter in a spray of massive wings, dedicated to nothing less than the complete destruction of every single bastard in Gotham that dares to call crime their passion!_

_That night, in that alley, Gotham itself gave birth to its agent of vengeance. The._ **Batman!**

“Uuuuugh, fuckin’ hell, Jack…”

“Pfffffft-bwahahahahaha!” Jack Napier cackled loudly as a chorus of groans echoed out around the bar. The lanky, dirty-blond gangster clamped a hand over his mouth, trying stifle his giggles as Bobby Hawkins, fellow blond bastard, if a bit more broad and muscular with much longer hair and a permanent stubble, rolled his eyes and Cyrus Beeney, a portly fella with a thin, dark mustache and a terrible combover, shot him a look of nervous disgust. The three men were all dressed in suits, dark-blue, black and brown respectively with gold pins on their lapels, matching fedoras and ties giving them each the “classic” mobster look.

“Jesus Jack, don’t joke about that shit,” Cyrus muttered, nursing his glass of liquor with his usual pinched face. “Mocking the dead like that is bad luck. And y’know as well as I do that the Bat’s real and pissed as hell.”

“Oh come off it,” Asher Belsito, redheaded, thick bearded, and built like an ox, snarked, a gruff little chuckled escaping his lips. The bulky enforcer was dressed similarly to his cohorts, though he favored a black vest over his white shirt instead of a suit jacket, leaving his muscular arms bare up to their elbows. “You seriously buying into that bullshit ‘bout a demonic bat beatin’ down all the crooks in Gotham?”

“Hey, Al Stryker didn’t get pinched on his own,” Cyrus retorted, jabbing a thick finger at Asher. “The big guy was one huge bruise by the time the pigs found him dangling from that lamp post!”

“Don’t forget what happened to Frenchy Blake,” Bob spoke up, smirking as he leaned on the bar. “Poor bastard got his arm snapped right at the elbow. And that’s before getting thrown through a window. ‘Parently he tried to shoot the bat. Didn’t work at all. You shoulda seen Boss Moxon after that shit went down though. I swear, he was gonna keel over right then and there, just outta rage.”

“Yeah, right, like a fucking bat demon’s going to go after a jewel smuggler,” Asher snorted, taking another shot.

“Heh, you think that’s all Frenchy did?” Jack grinned, leaning back in his seat. His grin widened when the other men glanced towards him, clear curiosity in their eyes. “Alright, you didn’t hear this from me, but Frenchy had a few problems with this kid, Morty or somethin’, who was taking a little off the top. Little things, tools, cash, bits of missing rubies that got lost in transit, supposedly. Course, Frenchy figured it out, and tried to feed the little shit his thieving fingers.”

Asher snorted again. “What, that’s it? Didn’t even cap the brat?”

Jack shrugged. “Hell if I know. Bat apparently burst in right at that moment, went livid on Frenchy. So a note to you guys: if a big scary bat, who just so happens to hate guys that cut up teenagers, bursts in on you, right in the middle of you cutting up a teenager? Don’t try to shoot it. That’ll just make it madder.”

“Hey, if you’re talking the Bat, you oughta hear what went down at Holloway’s,” Earl Copen, pale, freckled and dark haired, receding and going a bit gray at the edges, said with a wide smirk, standing up from one of the nearby tables and heading over to them, leaving behind two of his direct subordinates, Zane and Miguel, in favor of talking to the chatty mooks at the bar.

Asher moved over a seat for the older, cream-suited gangster, who chuckled cheerfully as he clasped a hand to Cyrus’s shoulder, leaning around the hefty guy to grin at Jack and Bob.

“Wait, the brewery or the fishery?” Bob asked, a little too casually. Luckily for him, Earl didn’t seem to take offense.

“Brewery. The one with the, uh, backroom,” Earl explained, glancing at the bartender. The old guy took the hint, heading further down the bar to wipe down glasses and chat with the three goons in red jackets keeping watch at the end of the bar. Earl watched him for a moment, before smirking again. “As I was saying, somebody, not saying it’s necessarily any bat demon, but _somebody_ hit us hard there. Lots of product completely vanished, only to turn up in the GCPD’s front door, along with the guys in charge of keeping it safe.”

“What, really?” Asher raised an eyebrow, leaning on the bar too. “Hold on, don’t we have guys on the cops?”

“Guys _with_ the cops, yeah,” Earl continued, not bothering to turn around. “Normally, we would’ve got it all back within a day or two. Missing evidence and all that. Thing is, all of the stuff was worthless, completely soaked through like someone dumped it in the harbor. Now, I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell can’t use wet coke, much less soaked meth.”

“Heh. I wouldn’t try it. Never know what kinda shit might be in the harbor.” Jack giggled again as Cyrus let out an aggrieved sigh, before adopting an exaggerated thinking pose. “Actually, one thing bothering me. This is bad for us, right Copen?”

“Bad for some of us, sure.” Earl smirked.

“So why are you so happy?” Jack continued, dutifully setting up his senior “coworker”.

“Because I wasn’t in charge of it. You boys know Antoine Rotelli?”

“Ooohhh.” They all nodded, well aware of Boss Moxon’s underbosses, particularly the one currently in charge of narcotics distribution throughout their territory in downtown Gotham.

Earl’s grin widened. “Well, a certain somebody has been hitting him hard lately in all the worst places. Production, storage, distribution. Dealers going down hard and lieutenants going down harder. Which means some of the guys we have deals with are getting pretty antsy. Word is, Gambol’s pissed that he’s losing the supplies we send him, which means Maroni’s pissed that he’s not getting his cut of the profits, which means _Moxon’s_ pissed as all hell because they’re bitching at him. And take a guess on who that’s all falling on.”

“Pft. Poor Antoine,” Jack lamented, lifting his drink in a toast to the unfortunate underboss. “May he survive this oncoming storm!”

“Heh. Maybe not completely intact though, yeah?” Earl smirked, taking Cyrus’s drink from him and knocking one back. “Mmm, nice choice Beeney.”

“Th-Thanks sir.” 

“So, wait, is it the Bat?” Bob asked, looking confused. Not an uncommon look for him.

“Maybe, maybe not. Personally betting some lower family’s trying to make a move and came up with this ‘Batman’ as a cover. I doubt it’s one man waging a ‘war on crime’.”

“But...why can’t it just be one guy? I mean, that happens in other cities, right? Like the Flash or the Green Lantern.”

Earl smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. Jack idly reached over and dope slapped Bob, getting Earl to chuckle. Jack ignored the annoyed look Bob shot him in favor of watching Earl drink the rest of Cyrus’s liquor, the lieutenant smirking as he flipped the empty glass over.

“Look, you’re young, you don’t quite get how things go, right?” Earl grinned, propping his head up on a hand. “No masked vigilante survives in Gotham. Caped crusaders get lynched, at best, because nobody’s willing to tolerate their bullshit. Remember the balloon man*?”

“No?” Bob didn’t. Jack did.

“Exactly. Some flashy bastard in red or green shows up, waving around fancy lights or trying to run down everybody? We find them. We find their families. We bury them a-fucking-live. We don’t tolerate that shit around here.

Earl’s smile widened. “So if it is one stupid bastard going after us? All it takes is one guy getting lucky with a bullet and it’s bye bye Batsy.”

“Well, what if he’s one of those, uh...metahumans, yeah?” Bob leaned forward, frowning. “I don’t wanna go up against someone who can pop my eyes with his mind.”

“Wouldn’t he do somethin’ like turn into a swarm of bats?” Jack suggested. “Fit the theme and all.”

“Hah. Even if he is a meta, we’ve got a few friends of ours around who can deal with that sort of thing. Hell, Zeiss alone can put down a dozen dumbasses in capes, so no need to worry your pretty heads.” Earl smirked. “This thing’ll take care of itself. So just take advantage of things as they come. Antoine’s on the carpet, and that just means good things for us up and comers. In fact, if you boys want a little help working your ways up, I could put in a good word-”

“Jack.” The man in question glanced up, grinning up at the big man addressing him. Blue-eyed, bulky, bald as a baby and pale as a sheet, Danny Villanova was the bodyguard of Carl Grissom, Moxon’s right hand man, and Jack’s direct boss. The black-suited blackguard glanced between Jack and Earl, before coming to some decision in that thick skull of his. “Sorry Mr. Copen, I need to borrow Jack there. Mister Grissom wants ‘im.”

“Heh. Didn’t think negotiations were going that badly.” Earl smirked again, glancing at Jack’s drink. “You heard ‘im Jacky, time to go.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Jack grinned, passing his glass down to Earl as he got up and followed Danny. He had to stifle a giggle as he heard Earl gag when he took a sip, finally noticing the glass was full of sprite instead of vodka.

Villanova and Napier made their way through the restaurant, past the nicely set tables covered in red cloths and the nervous waiters who carefully avoided walking in their path. 

_Gaspare’s_ wasn’t fully empty, of course. There were plenty of civilians around, chatting, eating their dinners, and being very careful not to listen in to the various men in suits scattered throughout the restaurant, darkers colors signifying Moxon’s boys while the red jackets stood for the Falcone Family.

It was near the back of the restaurant that Carl Grissom, the Moxon underboss in charge of managing most of Lew’s information networks and “legal establishments” was seated, leaning back in a nice, classy booth near the guy playing piano. Grey haired and brown-eyed in an even greyer suit, the tanned old man still radiated life and authority, a casual smile on his face as he chatted with the much younger, surlier man across from him. 

Dominic Falcone, son of the late Vito Falcone and nephew to Don Carmine himself, was a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties, dark brown hair swept to the side and cold grey eyes glancing up to stare at Jack and Danny as they approached. The clean-shaven Falcone capo wore a red button-up shirt, a napkin hanging over his shirt from his open collar, and black slacks, his arms bare as he cracked open the crab on his plate.

“Jack, my boy, grand to see you,” Grissom greeted them, spreading his arms wide before waving off Danny, “That will be all Daniel, thank you for your help.” 

Danny nodded, before heading over to one of the nearby tables where two more of Grissom’s men sat.

“This the guy?” Dominic muttered, pulling off one of the crab legs and sticking it in the little pan of melted butter set up on the table.

“Yes, Jack is indeed the man you heard laughing earlier,” Grissom continued with a smile on his face, grinning up at Jack as Dominic ate, “You were making quite the racket, Jack.”

“My apologies,” Jack immediately said, taking his hat off and pressing it to his chest, his narrow face drooping in a look of contrition, “I hope I didn’t disturb your meal, sir.”

“No need to worry, I wasn’t disturbed in the slightest,” Grissom replied, before smiling at Dominic, “How about you, Mr. Falcone? Did Jack’s laughter disturb you?”

“It didn’t bother me,” Dominic replied, staring up at Jack with those cold eyes of his, setting the leg’s remains back on his plate. “What’s wrong with your eye?”

“It’s a genetic thing, sir. One eye is bluer than the other.”

“Hm.” Dominic kept watching him, unblinking. “I want to know what you were laughing about.”

“It was just a little story I was telling the boys,” Jack promptly answered, keeping his hat in position as he rolled with the subject change.

“Tell me it.” It wasn’t a request.

Nevertheless, Jack smiled, and launched into a retelling of his earlier story, though with fewer nicknames and a little less exaggeration. Perhaps he was being a bit grandiose in his retelling, but it was a performance for his boss and an important guest, and, as such, must be given the appropriate gravitas.

The grinning mobster watched his audience as he spoke, Grissom watching him with his usual idle smile, which seemed to twitch with amusement as Jack continued, while Falcone stared at him evenly, still grim-faced. The room seemed to quiet as Jack kept speaking, eyes drawn to him by his low voice and brutal tale. As the story drew to a close, Jack took a moment to glance back at his audience, but no one was looking. They were all still talking and eating.

His voice didn’t falter, and he finished the story, once again, with an emphasized “ **Batman** ”, though it was more a whisper this time, instead of the punchline to a scary story told around the campfire. Grissom was still grinning, his wrinkled face unchanging. Dominic had raised an eyebrow.

“That’s what you were laughing about?” Falcone asked, staring in Jack’s eyes.

“Yes sir,” he replied promptly. Aware of the unsaid “why”, he continued. “It was more my companions’ reactions that I was laughing at, sir, than the story itself.”

“Hm.” Falcone leaned back, glancing at his crab before looking up at Jack again. “You’re aware that Thomas Wayne saved my uncle’s life?”

He was well aware. Everybody knew how the Inzerillos, back in the day, put five bullets in Carmine Falcone’s chest, and twelve in his brother, Vito Falcone. Carmine survived, rushed to Thomas Wayne by his father, Vincent Falcone. Vito did not.

“I am, sir,” Jack answered.

Falcone frowned. “Why would a curse like that wait, what, twenty years to go active?”

A good question, and a better topic. “I am not sure, sir.”

“Thirteen would be a better number,” Falcone noted, “That’s more of a number for curses.”

“True, sir.”

“Well, technically speaking,” Grissom spoke up, cutting the fish on his plate as Falcone looked at him. “It was thirteen years ago that Bruce Wayne left the city. Around the anniversary too, so over in October. I would say that's sufficiently 'spooky'.”

Falcone hummed at that, returning his gaze to Jack. “Where’d you hear this story?”

“I made it up, sir.”

“Hmph.” Falcone glanced at Grissom. “Your boy here seems to think he’s a storyteller.”

“Jack has a tendency to talk a lot to pass the time.” Grissom grinned, looking up at Jack. “Speaking of talking, I have a task for you.”

Jack nodded, staying quiet. Usually the smart thing to do.

Grissom took a phone out from his jacket, the Falcone men nearby tensing for a moment at the motion, before handing it to Jack. “Call Lewis for me, would you kindly? Mr. Falcone has expressed interest in the possibility of an alliance to deal with our vigilante problem, and he needs to be made aware of further potential dealings.”

“I don’t have the authority to guarantee anything,” Falcone stated, frowning as Grissom took out a pad and pen and began noting something down. 

“Not to worry, Mr. Falcone. I’m simply ensuring my employer is aware of the situation and of the steps we may need to take to ensure all parties are satisfied.” Finished, Grissom ripped a note from the pad and handed it to Jack. “Read that note to him once you get through Zeiss. Please don’t be too flippant with the man. He’s a proud breed of humorless.”

“Understood, sir,” Jack replied, glancing at the note before setting it in his pocket and opening up the phone.

“Outside, please,” Grissom said, smiling as usual. A fair request, considering the amount of potential eavesdroppers.

“Of course, sir.” Nodding to both Grissom and Falcone, Jack scrolled through the contacts on the phone until he hit “LM” as he walked through _Gaspare’s_ kitchen, nervous employees scampering out of his way as he headed out the restaurant’s back door. 

It was a clear night, nice and pleasant for once. As the city moved out of Summer and into Autumn, these nights would become rarer as the wind picked up and rainclouds started moving in, bringing back the near constant downpours Gotham was known for. Jack hit the call button on the smartphone’s screen, lifting it to his ear as he listened to Boss Moxon’s ringtone. The old man hadn’t bothered to change it from the default. A shame.

“Zeiss,” Moxon’s bodyguard answered, his tone clipped.

“Heya Philo,” Jack responded, smirking as he imagined the bald bastard’s expression immediately souring. “It’s Jackie Napier, Grissom’s boy. Y’know the one.”

“Yes, I do. Why are you calling?”

“Bossman has some stuff for the Big Boss. Y’know how he’s meeting with Falcone nephew numero due, right?” Jack glanced around the alley as he spoke. No one with half a brain in this neighborhood would try jumping someone dressed like him outside a place like _Gaspare’s_ , but not everybody in Gotham had half a brain, and desperate lunatics had piss poor survival instinct. It was an upscale enough place to avoid the usual vagrants that wandered Old Gotham, but you never knew when one might decide to migrate to more fertile hunting grounds, thinking they could mug a rich sucker before the cops summarily executed them for “resisting arrest”.

“Is it important?”

“Would I be calling you from one of Grissom’s phones if it wasn’t important? C’mon Zeiss, Mr. Moxon can take a break from wining and dining for business, can’t he?”

“Mr. Moxon is a very busy man-”

“Zeiss, do you really want to be the guy who fucks over an alliance with the Falcones?” Sure, any possible alliance wasn’t set in stone yet, but exaggeration for the sake of speed never hurt anyone.

“Fine,” Zeiss bit out, a growl in his voice. “One moment.”

Jack chuckled, keeping the phone to his ear as he waited. He took the paper out of his pocket again, reading the instructions a bit more carefully this time. From what it seemed, Falcone wanted them to cut off sales to the Somerset groups, instead selling directly to Arnold Stromwell, Carmine’s main distributor. It’d piss off the Maronis, but eh. That’s what negotiations were for, and it wasn’t like it was Jack’s job to figure these things out-

Jack paused. Something was off. He lowered the phone, his free hand drifting to the glock in his jacket. 

“Hello? Hello?” Jack jumped as a rough voice barked out of the phone. He grimaced, glancing down the alley again before bringing the phone to his ear.

“Mr. Moxon, sir?”

“Yes? Who the hell is this? Do you have any idea what I’m in the middle of?”

“A Wayne fundraiser, sir. Mr. Grissom informed me,” Jack replied, trying to not seem distracted as he looked around, an uneasy prickling on the back of his neck.

“Then why on earth would you-” Jack didn’t hear the rest of Mr. Moxon’s complaining. His feet were suddenly wrenched out from under him as he was yanked up the side of the building. 

Grissom’s phone smashed on the pavement. A small part of Jack was a bit worried about that, even though he knew Grissom had multiple smartphones for various occasions. A much larger part was more consumed with the fact that a very large thing currently had its hands gripping the front of his shirt, holding him close as it stared at him with pure white eyes.

“ **Jonathan Abbott Napier,** ” the beast growled, a metallic tinge to its deep voice. “ **An enforcer and hitman for the Moxon Syndicate. A hired murderer responsible for the deaths eleven people in Gotham alone. Your direct superior is Carl Grissom, a ruthless mobster responsible for ruining hundreds of lives through violence and extortion. Knowing all of that, why shouldn’t I drop you here and now?** ”

Jack blinked, honestly not sure what to make of this situation. He smiled uneasily, noticing how he was now on the roof of the apartment building next to _Gaspare’s_. More specifically, right up against the ledge of that apartment building, his upper half actually hanging off in the open air while his feet brushed up against the ledge. And wow, that was quite the drop behind him.

“Uh...G-Good question…” Jack began, trying to gauge the...thing shrouded in darkness in front of him- “Oh shit. You’re the Bat.”

“ **I am,** ” it answered, leaning towards him. “ **You didn’t answer my question.** ”

“T-True...U-Uh, I-I-AH!” Jack yelped as the Bat shoved him back, sending him over the edge before a hand gripped his shirt, yanked him up and slammed him painfully against the roof. “GAH!”

Jack tried to get up but a massive boot slammed on his chest, keeping him pinned to the stone beneath him and pushing the air out of his body in a painful wheeze. “ **One chance. How many men are inside the restaurant, why are they meeting, and who is in charge?** ”

Jack talked, of course. How could he not? While the mobster was no stranger to tense situations, his current set of circumstances was throwing him off quite a bit. And when a truly massive man dressed like a bat comes along and threatens to chuck him off a building, well, what could Jack do but tell him everything he asked for? He certainly didn’t want to be thrown off a building, no sir.

Which was why he was rather put out when the Bat threw him off anyway. The cord tight around his ankle did little to mitigate that feeling of pure terror, followed by mild annoyance as he was left dangling.

Still, he didn’t say or do anything to draw attention to himself as he saw a massive bat-shaped thing glide down to the roof of the restaurant. Better the jackasses inside get a bit bruised up than the Bat come back for him.

Jack was kinda hoping somebody would get him down soon though. He really didn’t want to spend the whole night with blood rushing to his head...

\----:----

* **The Balloonman** : A violent vigilante that appeared in Gotham in the months following the Wayne murders. Real name Davis Lamond, a Gotham social worker, the vigilante primarily targeted corrupt officials and suspected mafia members. His modus operandi, which earned him the moniker “The Balloonman”, involved ambushing and beating his victims in isolated public places, before strapping them to modified balloons and sending them skyward. His victims then plummeted to their deaths when the balloons inevitably popped. Among Lamond’s six victims were Ronald Danzer, a councilman suspected of embezzlement; Lieutenant Bill Cranston of the GCPD; and Rocco Gigante, nightclub owner and suspected mobster.

Lamond himself was never captured by police. Instead, his corpse was found hanging from a street light outside of the GCPD Headquarters. The vigilante had been brutally beaten--resulting in both his arms, his jaw, and most of his ribs being broken--before being strangled to death with a rope. His brutalized body was then hanged from the street light with a note nailed to his chest. The note in question read “_nd ju_t_ce for _ll” with a cartoon stickman drawn hanging from a gallows above the phrase. 

The unfinished message is believed to read “And justice for all”, and has resulted in the murder being referred to as “The Hangman Killing”. To date, the culprit has not be found.


	2. Harvey and Harvey

** Chapter 2 **

Harvey Dent was a very angry man. 

Not in public, of course, and very rarely in private. In public, Harvey Dent was the golden boy of Gotham City, their incorruptible District Attorney, keeping the city safe from violent criminals of all kinds. That image of an honest, earnest, hardworking public servant, a symbol for the people to look up to, was one he took deliberate steps to cultivate.

It certainly helped that his appearance lent itself to a somewhat commanding presence. Standing at 6’2” and noticeably well-built with broad shoulders and a strong jaw, Harvey Dent was what the media would call “classically handsome”, meaning he was clean-shaven with straight, short dark-brown hair and lightly tanned skin. His bright blue eyes and pearly-white smile certainly helped that ideal image the Gotham news loved to grace him with, something Harvey was secretly quite thankful for.

Nicknamed “Apollo” by the Gotham news media for his skill as an orator and “sunny” disposition, Harvey had a role to play in Gotham. He needed to stand as the pinnacle of the city’s law enforcement, the truly incorruptible prosecutor bringing hope and light to a broken city of shadows. He’d risen to the top on such promises, becoming a prosecutor straight out of law school and immediately shooting for the District Attorney’s position, winning it with cheers and accolades by the public. As such, he couldn’t afford the slightest scandal or slip up, because lord knew what the vicious beasts lurking in this godforsaken city would do to him if he did.

And right now, he had to deal with one of those beasts. Lew Moxon, the king cockroach of Old Gotham. The ancient gangster had crawled out of his rotted lair in favor of infesting the Diamond District for the night, worming his way into a Wayne Foundation Fundraiser being held at the Aparo Ballroom, a common venue for gatherings of the well-known and wealthy, characterized by its blue and gold decor.

The Wayne Foundation, one of the city’s most well-known charities, held these sorts of fundraisers every other month or so, putting on grand galas in order to draw in rich donors looking to do their part for the city they loved. Or, at least, that was how they supposedly were back in the day. Ever since the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne, the Foundation Fundraisers had become less about giving back to the impoverished and more about the wealthy elite of Gotham displaying just how “generous” and “thoughtful” they could be while gorging themselves on expensive food.

In Moxon’s case, the “alleged” mobster was there trying to ingratiate himself to the upper-class and civil servants of Gotham. Including Harvey, of course.

“-After all, young men like yourself often have grand political aspirations-” Moxon prattled on, idly swirling a wine glass in one hand while the other gestured as he spoke, as though he was giving a grand speech to a huge crowd, rather than just talking to a bored man at a party. “-Patronage, particularly from men of wealth, such as myself-”

Harvey kept quiet as Moxon droned on and on, occasionally muttering something vague to make it seem like he was listening as he watched the other partygoers chatting and drinking. Old, new and prospective money mingled in a sea of black tuxedos and dresses. 

Harvey was positive that over half of the people in the room were connected to one of Gotham’s numerous mobs in some way or another; a good chunk of them were likely in Moxon’s field of influence already. He glanced down at Moxon for a moment, keeping a smile affixed to his face as he listened to a man who, by all rights, should be rotting in prison for his decades of extortion and murder.

Lew Moxon wasn’t exactly an ugly man, though age hadn’t quite been kind to him either. A formerly hard visage has softened with age, wrinkles prominent across his skin and giving his light-brown eyes an almost sunken quality, his round spectacles only serving to highlight how watery and faded they looked. Harvey had seen pictures of Moxon back in his heyday, and it was clear to see the man’s once harsh gaze had faded into something feeble. 

About eight inches shorter than Harvey, Moxon wasn’t quite the intimidating presence he had once been, his formerly dark hair now white, wispy and receding far back and his nose noticeably off center from being broken multiple times. 

Granted, Moxon wasn’t exactly going for intimidating at this party. The utterly gaudy golden jacket over a black shirt and white slacks, paired with a little purple bowtie, would’ve ruined that entirely if he was. No, instead the elderly gangster was trying to act like the kindly patron, an almost grandfatherly figure just looking out for the “youth” of Gotham, instead of a vicious mob boss trying to further fill his pockets before he finally dropped dead.

 _Something that should have happened a long time ago,_ Harvey mused, before trying to keep himself from cringing at the errant thought. Sure, that little slip up had been in his head, but if he let things slip in his mind, how long would it be before they started spilling out his mouth?

Moxon had paused, and for a moment Harvey thought the old man had seen something on his face, but no, his attention was elsewhere. Harvey followed Moxon’s gaze, and saw a bald man in a black suit over a gold shirt and wearing red sunglasses, indoors and at night, walking towards them, distaste noticeable on his face. His gloved hand was clutching a cellphone, Harvey noted, and his pace was brisk. _Someone called him, someone he doesn’t enjoy talking to._

He glanced at Moxon, whose own expression was souring. _He didn’t want to be disturbed, but his bodyguard is here anyway. So this call is important._ Suddenly, Harvey felt a lot more attentive.

The man came to stop in front of them, taking a glance at Harvey like he was sizing him up, before turning his gaze on his seething boss. “Mr. Moxon, there’s a call for you-”

“I realized,” Moxon bit out, his hand, the one he had been stabbed through in 1963, visibly twitching against his wineglass. “But as I quite emphatically told you earlier, Mr. Zeiss, I do not wish to be disturbed. Particularly when I am _right in the middle_ of an important conversation!” _So that’s who it is. You’re getting sloppy, Harvey, the glasses should have given him away._

Philo Zeiss. Thirty-three years old, 6’2”, Sicilian, and a career-criminal who mainly worked as a bodyguard for mob bosses and CEOs with criminal connections. Such as Lew Moxon. _No arrests, no convictions, not in the US at least, but a person of interest in at least nine homicide cases and in another thirty-seven different assault and battery cases. Good to confirm he is indeed in Moxon’s employ._

“I know, sir, but Napier-” “Who?” _Napier...Jonathan “Crazy-Eyed Jack” Napier, one of Carl Grissom’s enforcers, nicknamed due to heterochromia, typically seen in the company of Robert “Bobby the goon” Hawkins. Arrested twice, no convictions. Evidence vanished. Under suspicion for multiple homicides._

Zeiss glanced at Harvey. Harvey smiled cheerfully back. Zeiss frowned, those red lenses doing nothing to hide the suspicion in his eyes, and put a hand on Moxon’s back, speaking in a low tone to the elderly mobster, who was visibly agitated.

Harvey was tempted to get closer, to listen in on their hushed conversation, but Zeiss would have noticed immediately. According to one of the many dossiers on suspected mafia affiliates back in Harvey’s office, Zeiss had at least a few cybernetic enhancements inside him, all designed to increase his physical abilities. Better he didn’t take the risk.

Moxon scowled at whatever Zeiss was saying, snatching the phone from his hand and speaking into it. As his boss started demanding answers from the caller, Zeiss looked over at Harvey, his lips curling up into a cold smirk.

“Hello Mr. Dent. I hope I haven’t ruined-” the bodyguard tried to say before Moxon abruptly flinched back, jerking the phone away from his ear mid-sentence.

“What? What the hell was that noise!? Naper? Naper!” Moxon growled, huffing angrily as he shoved the phone against Zeiss’s chest. “The little shit hung up on me! You said that was important, Zeiss!”

“It was,” Zeiss protested, looking down at the phone before redialling the number. “Give me a moment, sir, I’ll get him back-”

“There you are!” Both Moxon and Zeiss paused, looking over at the new voice as Harvey felt a genuine smile spread across his face.

Gilda Dent, nee Gold, glanced at the two mobsters before smiling up at her husband. Twenty-seven years old, 5’11”, with short blonde hair in a bob cut and fair skin spotted with adorable little freckles, along with beautiful green eyes, Gilda was probably the only truly good person in Harvey’s life. Everyone else he seemed to know had secrets to hide, masks they wore for the public or private. He could never really be sure who to trust, but Gilda...Gilda made him feel safe, like no one else did.

“Here I am,” Harvey replied, chuckling as his heart seemed to warm. “Did you have any luck finding Bruce?”

“Nope, no luck. You would think a billionaire would stand out in this crowd, but I seem to keep running into millionaires instead.” Gilda grinned, glancing back at the crowd of partygoers. While most of the women there seemed to have gone for the strapless look, Gilda’s was just sleeveless, a nice black dress that covered most of her chest while leaving her neck bare, showing off the gold locket Harvey had gotten her for her birthday last year. Along with her white pantyhose and black heels, to provide color contrast apparently, she looked absolutely gorgeous, and matched quite well with Harvey’s own black tux.

“I swear, he’s never around when I want to find him,” Harvey replied, sighing in amusement. “Do you think Bruce is even at this party?”

“He might not be. If I’m to believe Ms. Chantell, he’s off cavorting with some young ‘harlots’.”

“Did she really say harlots?”

“No, she used a less polite word, but I decided to rephrase it for our high society surroundings.”

“Ah ha hem.” Harvey’s mood immediately soured, though he kept a smile on his face as he turned towards Moxon. The old man was staring at them with what he probably thought was a pleasant smile, while Zeiss was looking increasingly agitated behind him as he tried and failed to call Napier back. “Well hello my dear. You must be Mr. Dent’s lovely wife.”

“Indeed I am,” Gilda replied with a fake smile, taking Moxon’s outstretched hand and giving him a firm handshake, “Gilda Dent, photographer, sculptor, and this big sweet lug’s better half. Speaking of, I hope I wasn’t interrupting you two?” She glanced back at Harvey, raising an eyebrow, and Harvey smiled back, a grin that did not reach his eyes at all.

“Oh no, not at all my dear,” Moxon simpered, waving off Gilda’s supposed concerns with his free hand, “Why, I was merely-”

“Great! I’m glad to hear that, since I do need to borrow Harvey for a bit,” Gilda promptly replied with a charming smile as the old gangster blinked at being interrupted. “There are a few people here who are interested in supporting his reelection campaign, and we do need to get around to them. You know how these upper class types can get, I’m sure.”

“Ah, yes, of course, of course, I fully understand. Though I did have a few things I would like to go over with Mr. Dent.”

“Thank you for being so understanding! I’m sure an important man like yourself must have so many things to discuss with my husband, so I really appreciate this.” _You’re laying it on a bit thick there, dearheart._ “Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure Harvey speaks with you again before the night is up. Though if you’re looking for another conversation partner, I think I saw Thomas Elliot over by the buffet table.”

“Really?” Moxon paused, drawing himself up and smiling in an attempt to cover his obvious avaricious excitement at the prospect of meeting the scion of one of Gotham’s oldest, and wealthiest, families. “Ahem, well, I must thank you for that information, my dear.” He nodded to her, then at Harvey. “Mrs. Dent, Mr. Dent. I will speak to you both later. Philo! Come along. You already interrupted me once tonight, I might as well keep you close.”

Zeiss scowled at his boss’s demands the instant the man’s back was turned, taking a moment to glare at Harvey as though this was all his fault before sullenly trudging after Moxon. Harvey smirked in return, raising an eyebrow at his wife.

“I thought Thomas Elliot was still in Philadelphia?”

“He probably is.” Gilda shrugged. “But you never know. He could have dropped by to visit his childhood friend.”

“I think we would know if he did,” Harvey noted, “The illustrious upper class of Gotham tends to flock towards the richest people in a given area.”

“So look for a swarm of millionaires circling a given area, and you’ll find a billionaire?”

“Exactly. Though I think they prefer ‘flock’ instead of ‘swarm’. Or possibly a murder or conspiracy.”

Gilda giggled. “Maybe a parliament? A congregation.”

“Both excellent suggestions.” Harvey grinned, before snapping his fingers. “Got it! An affluence of millionaires!”

“Bravo, bravo, Mr. Dent! With such a skill with words, it’s only right that you be graced with the nickname Apollo!” Gilda politely clapped, trying to seem serious before smiling up at him. “But you might want to avoid talking about your discovery around these fine folk. The richer someone is, the thinner their skin.”

“Ah, words of wisdom from the brilliant bride of Apollo.” Harvey glanced at the crowd. “Speaking of our fellow partygoers, shall we go rejoin them now that Moxon is appropriately distracted?”

“Oh but of course! They must be graced with your presence, after all. Particularly a few people I spoke to in my search, who expressed a fair bit of interest in helping out Gotham’s golden prosecutor support truth and pursue justice. At least against the people they don’t like.” Gilda shrugged, grinning. “Just be yourself, okay? You have tons of natural charisma, and people wind up liking you easily when you’re casual with them.”

“If only.” Harvey sighed, before smiling again, readying himself for another foray into the irritating world of Gotham’s upper-class. He held out an arm to Gilda, his smile widening as she linked hers through his. “Stick by my side? You can introduce me to the ones you already spoke to, and we’ll move from there.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Gilda grinned up at him, and as he saw her smile while they walked across the ballroom floor, Harvey felt a bit lighter. Perhaps the night would be better than he expected.

\---2---

Detective Harvey Bullock was having an interesting night. Of course, interesting didn’t mean good, but it didn’t automatically mean bad either. Interesting landed somewhere between mildly shitty and “holy shit, City Hall is on fire again”.

“What the hell is that supposed to be?” Detective Renee Montoya, Harvey’s partner, asked as she got out of his car. She was dressed similarly to him in the unofficial uniform of any detective who wound up working with Jim Gordon for more than two weeks, meaning a nice long coat in dark colors over a button up shirt. Though she didn’t go for the classic brown and white, instead going for black over dark blue. She didn’t have a tie or hat either, but Harvey did.

Side by side, the two of them couldn’t look any more different. Bullock was a burly, overweight white guy with short black hair and a perpetual five o’clock shadow, while Renee was a thin, muscular latina with long, curly dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail.

“Looks like a guy dangling from a roof,” Bullock observed. A coupla officers had set up a ladder alongside the apartment building by the restaurant. _Casper’s_ or something, some ritzy upscale place. Not so ritzy now, what with the bullet holes in its windows.

“Wow, I didn’t know you were a captain, Harv.”

“Eh?”

Montoya just smirked at him, putting her hands in her coat pockets and heading towards the crime scene, which was surrounded by three patrol cars and an ambulance. Bullock rolled his eyes, idly watching the patrolmen trying to cut down the scowling blond mook hanging off the building like a hooked fish. “Gives a new meaning to ‘turn that frown upside-down’.”

Chuckling at his own little joke, Bullock followed Renee into the restaurant. Which looked like shit.

Tables were turned over, smashed plates and glasses littered the floor, and about twenty-odd goons were sprawled out across the room, about half of them awake and grumbling with zip-ties around their wrists while the rest were out like broken lights. Cept with more groaning.

Some more officers were ambling around the room, handcuffing the uncuffed mooks and taking statements from the staff while the CSIs were taking pictures of the battered goons and marking and collecting evidence. Meanwhile, the paramedics were bringing a stretcher over to some old geezer with a broken nose and a busted lip that was resting in a booth, one hand clutching his badly twisted right knee as his blackened eyes scanned the room. His mouth twitched down when he noticed Bullock and Montoya, cementing Harvey’s opinion that he was probably another asshole instead of some poor vic. 

Bullock glanced away, towards the joint’s bar. The pair of legs sticking up behind it gave him a pretty good clue what happened to one of the brawlers. Shame the asshole seemed to have smashed straight through most of the drinks, judging by all the broken glass and reek of booze. “What a waste…”

“Hey, you two the detectives?” one of the officers examining the scene asked as he walked up to them. Bullock looked him over. Kinda pasty, short dark hair, maybe Irish. Not someone he knew.

“No, we’re Laurel and Hardy, here for the comedy act,” Harvey snarked, smirking as the other officer frowned. The serious type, maybe. Or just easily confused. “Looks like we were too late though. Seems like they went for a clown show instead.”

“Detective Renee Montoya, Major Crimes,” Renee introduced herself as though Bullock didn’t speak, holding her hand out for a shake which Pasty took. “This is my partner, Captain Harvey Obvious.”

“What? That-...Oh you fucker.” Montoya had the gall to smirk at him. Harvey huffed, growling at the confused looking officer. “Detective Harvey Bullock, also Major Crimes. So, why the hell did you call us in here?”

“Uh...I’m not sure, sir?” Pasty looked a mix of confused and nervous. “I mean, Frank called in the, uh, incident. I’m not sure why they sent someone from Major Crimes. Er, someones. Two of you, I mean-”

Harvey groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as he mentally redubbed Pasty as Newbie. “Montoya-”

“Deep breaths, Harv.”

“Right. Right.” Harvey sighed, before looking out at the other officers. “Which one of you is Frank?”

“Over here!” the guy busy handcuffing one of the red jacketed dipshits spoke up. Short brown beard, looked bald, bit more tanned than Newbie and had the more casual demeanor that spoke of a guy who’d been on the force for a while and seen much worse. He stood up, brushing off his pants, and headed over to them.

“I got this Lansky. Go see if the manager wants to talk this time.” As Newbie headed off, Beardsy grinned at Bullock and Renee. “We got quite a mess here, huh?”

“Yeah, you do,” Bullock replied. “So, since nobody else seems to want to answer me, why the hell did you call us in for a bar brawl?”

“Couple of reasons. First, it’s not a normal bar brawl here, detective. In case you didn’t notice, this isn’t a dive bar, it’s a restaurant-”

“Yeah, I got that. So? Major Crimes isn’t for arresting rich morons who got into a drunk brawl.”

“ _So_ , the ‘rich morons’ you’re talking about are Dominic fucking Falcone and Carl Grissom.”

Suddenly, the old bastard with the broken leg looked way too familiar. “You’re kidding.”

“Yeah, I wish.”

“Why were Grissom and Falcone’s nephew meeting here?” Renee asked, her notebook and pen already out.

“Not sure.” Beardsy shrugged. “I do know that they didn’t do this though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jimmy!” Beardsy glanced behind him, one of the CSIs pausing and frowning at him. “Show the nice detectives what you found.”

The Jimmy in question rolled his eyes, lifting up a familiar looking hunk of black and grey metal, two “wings” sprouting from a circular center. And Harvey’s interesting night just got worse.

It was a “batarang”. Which meant Batman. Of fucking course.

The vigilante had been a pain in Bullock’s ass for months now. That whole mess first started with a guy running into the Old Gotham station in a panic, screaming about how he’d just been attacked by some giant bat and begging to be protected. The guy at the desk had been skeptical, but then the dipshit started confessing how he had been trying to assault some lady when it happened. And when that lady came forward later on and said some weird creature in the dark really did pull the guy off of her, well, that led to some questions being asked. 

The department chalked it up to a random good samaritan with more balls than sense helping out at the time, but then more rumors and hearsay about a demon in the night rescuing poor citizens from muggers and rapists started circulating. Harvey always kept an ear to the street, so he was one of the first to start hearing about the “night demon”. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but it wasn’t his problem, so he let sleeping dogs lie.

Course, that’s about when the devil started going after actual gangs. And when Sly Tolliver and his Deacons, a Central Heights street gang well-known and well-loathed for selling drugs to kids and then selling the kids themselves when they couldn't pay up, were found bound and beaten to a pulp outside the abandoned apartment building they used as a base, people started paying attention. It didn’t take long for the papers to dub the “masked vigilante” as “The Batman”, and it took even less time for the gangs to start keeping their eyes out for flying rats in Old Gotham. 

Of course, most of the city just thought it was a new urban legend. Hell, most of the major mobs didn’t think the guy existed at all, instead looking towards their rivals as the real problem causers. 

Unfortunately, Harvey didn’t have that luxury. Batman kept popping up, so Commissioner Loeb, in his infinite wisdom, decided to have Major Crimes “look into it”. Which meant Bullock’s unit was stuck doing the shit jobs the other assholes on the force didn’t want to do. Same as usual, but now the fuckwits had the brilliant plan to declare that random crime scenes had been interfered with by Batman, meaning Major Crimes had to take a look, if just to shut them up.

But if one of Batman’s toys was around, dubbed “batarangs” by Detective Bennett, the smartass, then that meant the vigilante was definitely involved. Unless…

“What if one of these jackasses just brought that thing in with ‘em?” Bullock asked. “Doesn’t mean Batman was here.”

“Considering there’s another one stuck in a wall over there, kinda doubt it,” Jimmy snarked, going back to checking around one of the smashed tables. 

“Wiseass.”

“So, what’s the situation?” Montoya asked Beardsy. “Falcone and Grissom meet here, the vigilante breaks in and beats the hell out of their men, and Falcone makes a run for it, leaving Grissom to the vigilante’s mercy, or lack thereof?”

“Close. Near as we can tell, the Bat blew the lights out before entering the room and started taking down guys.” Beardsy gestured towards the lights, before pointing out a few men by the kitchen, all unconscious. “We’re not sure if he went in loud or something spooked the skells, but it seems like something set ‘em off and bullets started flying. Kinda a miracle nobody got shot.”

“Huh. Didn’t know bats were miraculous. Renee, you’ve got religious parents, what’s your take?”

Montoya rolled her eyes. “I’ll get back to you on that one. Please, continue.”

“Right, well, looks like whatever civvies were around and weren’t on staff ran for it the second things went bad,” Beardsy continued.

“Unfinished food points to at least half a dozen civs,” Bullock noted. “No luck finding our dashing diners?”

“We’ve been kinda busy getting this place secure.”

“Think any of them could’ve been mooks that made a run for it?”

“Nah. From the looks of it, all the skells stuck around their bosses. You can see how that worked out for ‘em.”

“Yeah, not too good.” Bullock paused. “Wait, so none of them ran for it?”

“Doesn’t look like it. I definitely wouldn’t want to be known as the guy who ran out on Carmine Falcone’s nephew, and Grissom there has a long memory.”

“So Dominic Falcone is still here?” Renee asked.

“Yup, was gonna get to that. He’s, ah, in the piano.”

“...What?”

Beardsy stepped to the side, gesturing towards a little alcove set up by the booths. 

“...That’s a piano?” Bullock had to ask.

“It was.” Dom Falcone, apparently, had been slammed straight into the center of white grand piano, smashed pieces of woods and keys littering the floor around him, the lid resting on top of his clearly unconscious body. “Seems like he decided to grab a waiter when things were looking bad for him. The, uh, Batman took exception to that.”

“Jesus. Is he still alive?”

“Last we checked. He’s definitely not getting up for a while though.”

“Heh. Maybe he’ll stay out long enough for us to actually get him inside a cell,” Montoya muttered.

“Hah, maybe. It’s more likely that he’ll just be laid out in a hospital bed for a bit before his big bad uncle decides to have him come home,” Beardsy replied. 

“Are the paramedics here for him?”

“Him and Grissom,” Beardsy replied, inclining his head towards the old piece of shit. “Maybe a few more of these guys. Batman didn’t go easy on them.”

“Hm. Any of the goons awake enough for us to talk to?” Bullock asked. 

Beardsy shrugged. “A few of them. Feel free to speak with any of them, though I doubt they’ll say much.”

“Thank you for your help,” Montoya said, closing her notebook and nodding to Beardsy. “We’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“Heh. Well, thanks for the consideration. Hope you two don’t waste your whole night here,” Beardsy replied, grinning and tipping his hat before wandering off. Bullock began scanning the room, glancing over the actually conscious mooks for a potential mark.

Grissom wasn’t an option. He was too experienced, wouldn’t let anything slip. Neither would Falcone, even if the prick was up and adam. The rest of the bozos would want to keep their mouths shut. Loose lips got stitched shut. He’d need someone willing to deal.

Eyes falling upon a familiar face, Bullock let out a huff before turning to Montoya. “Hey, you mind questioning the staff? I'll talk to the mooks.” 

“Any reason why I have to do the boring work?” 

Smirking at her, Bullock began to walk to his mark. “Captain's orders.” Holding back a laugh at Montoya’s face, he continued towards the weasel slumped against the bottom of the bar. “Hey there Earl. Rough day?”

Earl Copen, with a blatant shiner taking up the right side of his face, grimaced up at Harvey. “Bullock. Gordon let you off the leash again?”

“Heh. Cute.” Bullock yanked the weasel up by the front of his suit, easily marching him across the room before shoving him into a nearby booth.

“Ah, fuck! The hell’s wrong with you?!” Copen snarled at him, trying to pick himself up on the booth’s cushions, a tricky thing to do considering the zip ties clasped around his wrists. Bullock decided to be a pal and yanked him up again, this time into a sitting position, and then took a seat across from him.

“Just making you comfortable, pal. Figured you’d prefer talking now in a cozy booth instead of talking later in an interrogation room.”

“You say that like I’ll actually get in one,” Copen replied, smirking at Bullock now that he was upright. “I’m just a poor bystander. This’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Sure, sure. Then this’ll just be a formality.” Harvey returned Copen’s smirk, taking out a pen and pad. “Name and occupation?”

“Oh sure. Yeah, that’ll be Off, first name Fuck, and my occupation is fucking your mother.”

“So that’d make you a prostitute then? That’s illegal in Jersey, Mr. Off. Can I call you Fuck? In fact, pretty sure that gets you put on a list, Fuck.” Copen wasn’t looking so happy anymore.

“...Earl Copen, P.I..” Which was bullshit, but Harvey couldn’t quite call him on it*. 

“So what were you doing here tonight, Earl?” Harvey continued, staring evenly at the weasel for any sign of deception

“Just having some drinks with a few boys from work. Look, Harv, I-”

“Bullock. Friends get to call me Harvey. Nobody calls me Harv.”

“And I ain’t a friend of yours? Really?”

“I dunno. Are you?”

Copen rolled his eyes. “What d’you want? I don’t have a lot of cash on me at the moment.”

“Not cash. Just tell me what happened.”

“Some lunatic came in and-”

“Not that. Why were Grissom and Falcone meeting here tonight?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.” Copen’s lips twitched upwards. “Unless you got something for me.” He offered his wrists. “Like, say, taking these off of me-”

“Not happening. Not yet. Talk to me, and I’ll let you slip out of here.”

“Not enough,” Copen shot back. He was looking more confident. “You know that I know that _you know_ I’m getting out of lock-up easy. Letting me out here just means I get home early. And while I’d like that, it’s not enough to get me telling you shit. I need something _better_.”

Harvey frowned. He glanced behind him. The paramedics were wheeling away Grissom, who looked out of it, which explained why Copen was humoring him. Montoya was over by the kitchen, talking to a pale guy in a waiter’s uniform. He seemed tight-lipped, she seemed annoyed.

Bullock turned back to Copen. “What about a way out?”

Copen raised an eyebrow. “And that means?”

“A way off of this sinking ship.” Bullock held up a hand, setting his pad on the table. “Moxon’s not going to last.”

“Scuse you?”

“Moxon is an old bastard, yes. He’s lasted this long, yeah. But he’s not immortal. And a random vigilante, a nutjob who dresses like a bat, just beat the hell out of his top underboss. Not only that, but Falcone’s nephew got the crap kicked out of him too.” Bullock tapped the table for emphasis. “I’m gonna be guessing here, but Moxon took a while to set this up, didn’t he? Probably had to use some connections to even get Falcone interested in this meeting. And then he fucked it up.”

Copen didn’t say anything. Bullock continued. “Falcone’s nephew got smashed through a piano. He’s at least spending some time in the hospital. Grissom was supposed to keep him safe. Grissom failed at that. Grissom’s out of commission. So, who do you think Falcone’s going to blame for this?”

“The Bat?” Copen offered, his tone considering.

“Don’t screw with me, Earl. Batman’s a masked vigilante, a lunatic causing problems. He’s somebody Falcone will want dead, sure, but Moxon’s the guy who couldn’t handle him. Moxon’s supposed to be one of the top bosses in the city, and he can’t handle one guy?

“It makes him look weak. It makes him look stupid. It makes him look _vulnerable_. And what happens to vulnerable people in Gotham City?”

“...So what’s your offer?” Got him.

Bullock leaned back. “Tell me what you know. Every little detail about this meeting that you can think of. In exchange, I’ll put you in touch with Frankie Carbone.”

“Hm.” Copen stared at the table, frowning in thought. He looked back up. “So, you’re gonna get me into the Maronis? I trade one boss for another?”

“I said I’d put you in contact with him. If you’ve got enough for him that you can use for leverage, you can set yourself up with something nice. You’re a smart man.”

“Kissass.” Copen shrugged. “So, Falcone and Moxon.”

“Falcone and Moxon,” Detective Bullock replied, pressing a pen to his pad. It really was an interesting night.

\----:----

**GoldEye Investigations** : A private detective agency founded by property mogul and former financial advisor Lewis B. Moxon in 1972. Long suspected of having ties to major mafia organizations, Moxon is believed to have founded the organization as a means of gathering information for the purposes of blackmail and extortion and as a method of laundering money by having his victims “hire detectives” from the agency. The extortion victims would then begin processing payments to the organization through false requests.

Moxon is further believed to have facilitated the operations of his detective agency via blackmailing government officials, so as to allow his employees to easily obtain or forge detective licenses, providing justification for their presence in restricted areas. The system was not perfect, however, as a number of Moxon’s “detectives” met grisly ends over the years, due to suspicious parties eliminating who they viewed as “nosy investigators”. These issues eventually lead to Moxon providing the people in his employ with golden lapel pins to denote their allegiance to his organization.

Note: Despite their agency’s name, the Moxon Syndicate did not begin using a golden eye as their symbol until the rise of the Falcone Crime Family, which uses a white rose above a cluster of red roses as the symbol of their organization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Alright, so, here's the second chapter. Still slow going, but it's kinda going to be build up for a while. Hope it's good though. Thanks for reading.
> 
> Indi: The build up is worth the payoff i promise. Hope all of you are enjoying red's story!


	3. Business as Usual

** Chapter 3 **

Nearly 400 years old and populated by a little over 8 million people, Gotham City was a conurbation of multiple large, urban areas set across multiple islands, including the three major isles composing the city’s core. These islands are Uptown, Midtown, and Downtown, though they are locally and respectively known as Burnley, Somerset, and Old Gotham.

Old Gotham, as the name implied, was the oldest part of Gotham City, where Dutch settlers initially landed and settled in 1635. The large island was home to some of the oldest buildings and neighborhoods in the city, and had a long history of criminal organizations vying for control over the region. Much like the rest of the city, no one group had ever completely held control over Old Gotham, a fact that had remained true even in the modern era. 

As of the new 10s, Downtown Gotham was as divided as it ever was, split into territories controlled by three of the largest mobs in the city: the Maroni Crime Family, the McKillen Irish Mob, and the Moxon Syndicate.

Primarily situated within the Financial District of Old Gotham within a tall skyscraper marked as “GoldEye Investigations & Finances”, the Moxon Syndicate, headed by Lew Moxon, was an empire built on extortion, smuggling, and murder, and had managed to hold a brutal grip upon Downtown Gotham for over half a century. And yet, the beast’s grip was beginning to loosen. Its claws, sunken deep into the city’s soil, were pried from their places by a lunatic in a goddamn Bat costume. The Moxon Syndicate was losing its place in Gotham, a fact that did not go unnoticed by its ruthless boss.

“Thank you all for coming today. I know this meeting was short notice, and I appreciate just how promptly you all came when called,” Lew Moxon began, sinking back in his quite comfortable armchair as he looked out amongst his underbosses, each situated in comfy chairs of their own around his desk. As befitting the professional setting he was maintaining within his top floor office at GoldEye, Boss Moxon had worn an olive green suit to the meeting, dressing as nice and formal as ever. Beside him, Zeiss stood, the dark-suited man in full professional mode, stoic and silent, framed quite nicely by the wide window behind them. Bulletproof glass, of course. Moxon wasn’t an idiot.

“Similarly, I understand that we have been having problems recently. As you may have noticed, our dear friend Carl Grissom is not here today.” He smiled at the blonde in Grissom’s usual green-cushioned chair, who gave him a friendly little wave back. She was a gorgeous gal, high cheekbones, dazzling blue eyes, and flawless fair skin, her long golden locks framing her youthful face. Slender and tall in that typical supermodel way, Alicia Hunt was dressed in a blue pinstripe suit with a skirt and pantyhose covering her long legs, dark high heels completing the classy ensemble. “Say hello to Alicia, boys. I’m sure you’ve all met before, so be polite.”

“Hello Alicia,” his boys chorused, Vinnie and Antoine audibly irritated while dear Louie tried to smile at her, though said smile died a quiet death when Lew began to speak again.

“Now, I’m sure you’ve heard why, exactly, Carl is not here today. Antoine?” 

“Yes boss?” Antoine Rotelli replied, holding himself up straight. Dressed in a black suit with a brown tie, Antoine’s pale and wrinkled face was set in a near permanent frown, his thick eyebrows creased over his brown eyes as he kept his gaze steady on Moxon. His already greying and receding brown hair looked even greyer, age and stress already catching up to him. Which, considering the fact that he was technically the youngest of Moxon’s underbosses at 48, didn’t bode well for the rest of the group.

“Why, exactly, is it that Carl is not here today?”

“...Because the Bat-”

“That’s right. The _Bat_. The _fucking_ Batman, a goddamn urban legend, a lunatic dressed up in a Halloween costume, is the one who put my second-in-command in the fucking hospital.” Lew could feel his lips twitch into a snarl. He never was good at this genial bullshit. “So, on that subject, I need to know, right here, right now, why the _fucking_ Batman is still a GODDAMN PROBLEM! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU IDIOTS?!” 

To their credit, none of his boys flinched. Though neither did Alicia, so it wasn’t exactly a huge point in their favor.

“I sincerely apologize, boss,” Antoine replied, trying to sound contrite. He looked constipated. “We’ve just been having a rough time-”

“Doing what? Killing one fucking maniac?” 

“That maniac ain’t human,” Vinnie Ricorso spoke up, scowling. Dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit with a blue dotted tie, Vinnie was a fat and near-completely bald man, his remaining thin strands of hair a pale grey, aside from the thin, dark mustache set under his large nose. Despite letting himself go pretty badly over the years, Ricorso was still a rough and brutal bastard, well-deserving of his position in charge of Moxon’s enforcers and “debt collectors”. “Look, boss, I don’t wanna say it, but I don’t think-”

“No, you don’t fucking think. You just throw nimrod after nimrod at the Bat in hopes that something works. I tell you to take care of him, and what fucking happens?”

“Boss-”

“What. Fucking. Happens?”

“...He hits Grissom-”

“HE FUCKING HITS GRISSOM AND RUINS _MY GODDAMN DEAL WITH THE FALCONES!_ ” Moxon shouted, standing up and slamming his hands on his desk, ignoring the sting in his palms as he continued yelling, “The Roman’s nephew is in the goddamn hospital along with the only one of you morons with an actual brain between his ears! Do you even realize how much shit we’re in!?”

“Course we realize-”

“No, no you fucking don’t! If you did, YOU WOULD’VE KILLED THE GODDAMN BAT ALREADY!”

“It ain’t that easy!” Vinnie protested, one hand clenching an armrest as the other gestured wildly, “We can’t find the bastard! No matter how many guys I send looking, nobody can find the son of a bitch!”

“He’s right,” Antoine chimed in, “It’s the same story all over town. No one knows who the Bat is, or even sees the freak until he comes for us. No matter the place, no matter how many of my boys I set on watch, no one sees him until half the building’s unconscious or hanging from the rafters.”

“And how, exactly, does that keep happening?” Moxon demanded, glaring at Antoine, who met his gaze before glancing left, towards Louie and Alicia.

“Why don’t you ask Capistrano?”

“What? What do I have to do with this?” Louie “the Lilac” Capistrano asked, his grey eyebrows raised in surprise and confusion. Dressed in his usual lilac suit, hence the name, along with a violet undershirt and matching tie, Louie was one of Moxon’s oldest subordinates, earning him quite a bit of leeway despite his quirks. One being the constant reek of flowery perfume that hung around him like a shroud.

Antoine shrugged in response, still frowning. “It’s just a thought I had. Those trucks of yours are pretty easy to pick out, wouldn’t you say?”

“Woah woah, no, no, no, you’re not putting any of this on me,” Louie immediately shot back, jabbing a violet gloved finger towards Antoine, “My workers do their jobs nice and simple. We deliver, we transport, we scout. That’s all. It’s your fault if your brats can’t handle a lousy rodent!”

“My ‘brats’ wouldn’t have to handle the freak if your bright purple trucks weren’t the ones making deliveries,” Antoine replied, his frown curling into a scowl.

“Rotelli’s got a point,” Vinnie piped up, “Hell, I’m surprised nobody followed ‘em before now. Lou’s been practically screamin’ from the rooftops where we store our product for decades!”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me! Nobody follows my trucks because they’re _my_ trucks!” Louie shot back, “They’re supposed to be protected. By you, I might add! If anyone’s at fault, it’s your men for failing to do their darn jobs!”

“You’ve got a lotta nerve-”

“SHUT UP!” Moxon barked again, glaring out at his agitated underbosses. “I don’t want to hear shit about whose fault it was! I want to know what the fuck you assholes plan to do about this fiasco!”

His boys glanced at each other, before Louie cleared his throat. “Hem, well, boss, why don’t we try talking it out with Falcone? He was already open to discussing terms-”

“Before the freak put his nephew in the hospital,” Antoine interrupted, “We can’t guarantee Falcone won’t be angry with us, can we?”

“What if we gave him something then? A gift, some kinda apology-”

“That’d make us look weak,” Vinnie retorted.

“Vinnie, pal, I don’t know if you noticed, but we look weak already!” Louie snapped back, “You and Antoine keep saying it, the Bat’s too much of a problem.” He sighed, running a hand through his thick gray hair. “We don’t have the, the...shit, I don’t know, we just can’t let things go as they are, right?”

“Excuse me, I just want to make sure I have this right,” Alicia suddenly spoke up, glancing between Lew and his men. “So if we go to Falcone as is, he’ll probably reject any proposal out of hand because we couldn’t protect his nephew, yeah?”

“That’s about right,” Antoine replied, raising an eyebrow at her.

“And if we try to bribe him first-”

“Give him a gift,” Louie corrected.

“Right. He might not reject it, but it will make us look worse because it’ll seem like we’re desperate.” She looked between them again, Moxon’s men looking frustrated and tired now that their difficulties were spelled out completely. “And we can’t do nothing, because then the Batman will just keep going after our operations. Do I have that right?”

“Yeah, you do. So we’re fucked,” Vinnie bit out, his knuckles popping as he clenched his hands.

“Hey, Lici, what does Carl say about all this?” Louie asked, looking nervous. “He’s still breathing, right?”

“Still breathing, just not awake yet,” she replied quite matter-a-factly. “Docs are a teensy bit worried about his leg, but the rest shouldn’t kill him. He might be out of it for a while though. Old bones take longer to heal and all.”

Moxon couldn’t help a little wince at that, the unintentional reminder of his own mortality hitting him hard. He sat back down, and steepled his hands in front of him. “Well, lucky for you boys, I do have an idea of how to fix this mess you got us in.”

His boys looked up at him, Louie and Vinnie looking a mix of confused and disbelieving, while Antoine seemed more peeved than interested. He paused a moment for effect, then smirked.

“I’m going to be calling a meet at the Iceberg,” Moxon explained, grinning at the nonplussed expressions on his boy’s faces while Alicia made a little “o” of realization, nodding in thought. “A gathering of bosses, from every major mob. We’ll sit down, talk things out, and get every gang in Gotham set after the Bat. No one man will survive everyone in the damn city wanting them dead.”

His boys glanced at each other before Louie spoke up, “Sounds sound to me. I say we go for it.”

“I’m not sure ‘bout this,” Vinnie muttered, creasing his brow. “How’re we gonna get all of ‘em on our side? Most of those guys would be fine with the bastard ruining us.”

“But they won’t be on our side,” Moxon replied, settling back in his chair. “They’ll be against the Bat’s.” He spread his hands. “Nobody needs to work with us, they just need to want the Bat dead. And once he’s gone, things are solved. Not only that, but talking things out in public, where the Falcones can’t just outright move against us, means that we can look active in dealing with this shit _and_ we can regain their confidence.”

Vinnie frowned, thinking. “...Maybe we oughta run this by Grissom-”

“Excuse you?” The big man stilled as his boss’s voice went cold. “Are you forgetting who runs this operation?”

“...I didn’t mean any disrespect-”

“And yet you did. You did disrespect me.” Moxon sat up in his chair, staring evenly at Vincent. “I can tolerate questioning my decisions. That’s why I have you mooks instead of a dozen of Zeiss. That is very different from tolerating questions towards my authority.” Behind him, Zeiss unfolded his arms, holding his hands at his sides.

“...I’m sorry, I-”

“You’re sorry?”

“I’m sincerely sorry, _sir_ , I...said something very stupid.”

Moxon stared at Vincent, and then shrugged. “No harm.” Zeiss visibly frowned, but returned to his previous position. “You will be coming along with me to the meet. I’ll need you and Antoine to testify to the dangers the Bat represents.”

Moxon flicked his gaze towards Antoine, who nodded, his expression neutral, then glanced at Alicia. “Do be a dear and give Grissom my regards when he awakes. By that time, we should have everything running smoothly.”

“Gotcha. You can count on me, boss,” Alicia replied cheerfully, giving him a little salute.

Not much remained to be said after that. Moxon’s underbosses accepted his decision, said their goodbyes, and headed out with Alicia, none of them noticing as she switched off the recorder up her sleeve. Moxon himself, feeling quite satisfied, turned his chair around and gazed out over his section of the city, the shining light of the noonday sun illuminating the cityscape in a shining vision, light glancing off the steel and glass of Moxon’s district. Soon, everything would be right.

\---3---

Somerset was the middlemost of Gotham’s three major islands, named so due to the neighborhood known as Somerset that once served as the island’s core before Gothamites began associating the name with Midtown Island itself. Set within the “center” of Gotham, Midtown connects directly to Uptown Gotham and both directly and indirectly to Downtown Gotham through a series of bridges and a smaller island known as The Narrows, along with connecting directly to “minor” islands like Miagani Island and Arkham Island.

Often referred to as Gotham’s Melting Pot, Midtown was even further divided along lines of race, nationality, and gang affiliation than Downtown could ever be, split between some of the largest mobs in the entire city and filled with people from all walks of life.

Unlike Downtown Gotham, however, Midtown’s mafias were not in a state of cold conflict. Instead, each of them had come together and formed what was known as the Somerset Alliance, a coalition composed of the four major mobs operating out of Midtown. These members included the Blue Hook Bratva, the Lucky Hand Triad, the Duquesne* Mafia, and the Maroni Family.

Of the members of the Somerset Alliance, the Maroni Crime Family was easily the biggest, to the point of being the second largest mob in the entire city, though its numbers and influence paled in comparison to the Maroni’s chief rival. Nevertheless, the mafia had a great deal of power within its section of Gotham, extending across Downtown and Midtown straight from its seat of power in Downtown’s Little Italy up through East End in Midtown. In addition, the Maroni Family held enough power to have smaller criminal organizations operating within its larger structure, the most prominent of which being the Zucco Family and the Skeever Family, operating out of the Bowery and Park Row respectively.

While the Zucco Family was easily the more famous of the two subordinate crime families, mainly due to the actions of one Anthony “Tony” Zucco and his brothers in their roles as the Maroni’s chief enforcers and weapons traffickers, the Skeever Family had more than earned their high place in the mob’s hierarchy through their own businesses. Chiefly, the distribution of drugs and pornography, as well as providing the structural foundation for other important cornerstones of the Maroni Family’s major money makers; namely, prostitution. All centered around their home territory of Park Row.

Formerly a “nice neighborhood”, Park Row had lost that distinction the same night the Waynes lost their lives in an alleyway within the district. Once that blood had been spilled, and the neighborhood’s good name stained by it, those of ill-intent flocked to the district as quickly as those of “normal” lives and easy means fled. 

Property values dropped. The very air felt wrong around the bloody alleway. Gothamites knew curses, and those capable fled the row as soon as they could, away from that tainted place.

The clustered apartment buildings of the Row had an air about them, a reek of lust and desperation, neon turning the fog an odd mix of pinks and magentas on cloudy days. Aside from the meager business struggling to stay afloat under harsh “taxes” and set apart from the rest of the dilapidated bordellos and drug dens that populated the Row was a long row of decorated establishments emblazoned with garish designs and shining neon, shapely glowing figures blazing bright on dark nights. Amongst them was one particular club, covered in posters of scantily clad nubiles in spotted print, a shining golden light denoting the renovated theater as The Cheetah Room.

The Cheetah Room was a “gentleman’s club”, and quite possibly the most important one within Park Row’s club district. Leaving aside the fancier decor and general high-class air the place exuded, and ignoring the fact that it was a glorified strip club, The Cheetah Room was important for one very simple reason: while the rest of the clubs in Park Row paid up to the Skeever Family, The Cheetah Room itself was owned and run by Eddie Skeever’s younger brother, Jefferson.

Jefferson Skeever’s office was a room situated up on the second floor of the club, set as a sort of overlook to the club’s main floor. A couple decent sized tinted windows gave the main man himself a grand view of his Cheetah Room, an easy look out at the lusty losers and lechers gazing upon his bountiful beauties and sultry studs strutting their stuff across his shining stages and curling around his golden poles. From there, Jefferson could see every bit of his club, from the main stages colored in whites, reds, and yellows to the brightly lit bar with its cheetah-patterned stools, all the way to the violet curtained-off private lounges, where the high rollers could indulge themselves with whatever gal or guy that caught their eye.

Course, he couldn’t exactly look out there right now. Business called, and that meant staring down the scrawny Romanian puke fouling up the couch in front of his desk. Matei Văduva was a sickly looking white fucker, the “negotiator” sent in by the Romanian’s boss, Dragos Ibanescu. And boy, they couldn’t’ve picked a worse looking bastard. Dressed in an ugly brown leisure suit with a bizarrely stripey purple shirt under it, the buttons undone to show off his sickly grossly pale chest, Matty was easily the worst looking fucker Jefferson had ever had fouling up his office. God, he had some kinda splotches near his collar, what the fuck…

“Erh, Mr. Skeever?” the guy spoke up with a slight accent, a hand scratching at his stringy brown hair. His lips were twitching like he had something more to say, drawing attention to the thick, furry pornstache stretched across his face. God, why couldn’t they’ve sent Ileana? Least she had a nice rack… “Uh…”

Jefferson Skeever leaned back in his cushy office chair, twiddling his thumbs as he stared down the ratty fuck he had to deal with. Lord knew his big bro, sour, dour Eddie, never had to deal with this bullshit.

“Yeah Matty? You were sayin’ somethin’?” Jeffy asked, giving the Romanian a side glance as he turned towards the window, staring out at his lights, his face slightly reflected in the glass. Jefferson Skeever was one handsome mother fucker, if he did say so himself, a solidly built man with pearly white teeth and deep brown eyes, though those were currently covered by his sunglasses. Coarse black hair done back in cornrows, well-groomed mustache and small goatee, a golden watch set on his hand, jeweled rings in gold and platinum on both ring and middle fingers, all brought together with a sharp dark blue suit with a matching tie and a stylish cheetah print shirt underneath, Jefferson was the picture of a high-class gangster, someone who was at the top and deserved to be there. So why the fuck was he having to deal with this shitbag?

“The...The Batman, yeah? We was talking about him, yeah?” Oh, right, that.

Jeff snapped his fingers. “Riiiiiight. Thanks for reminding me. You guys are late on your deliveries. Again.” He clicked his tongue. “That ain’t good, Matty. Ain’t good at all.”

“But I was just telling you, we’re not to blame for that! The Batman, he’s been coming after us!”

“That right?” Jeffy glanced past Matty to the big guy leaning against the doorframe. “Y’hear that Yarnell? The Romanians can’t bring us some porn vids because of the batman. Guess he’s not a fan of T ’n A.”

“Seems like,” Lewis ‘The Lion’ Yarnell replied, his voice low and growly despite his wide grin. Yarnell was a weird guy, but a good enforcer. Dyed his hair and beard golden blonde for some reason, really stood out against his skin, but eh. Least he dressed nice in a black suit with a gold undershirt, plus gold mirrored shades for that intimidation factor. Definitely seemed to work, seeing how Matty flinched.

“But that’s still your problem, Matty,” Jeffy continued, turning his gaze back on the greasy puke. “I can get being late by, say, a couple hours. A day, that’s a little much. A week of nothing, that’s a problem. Two months of us, your faithful distributors, getting fuck all when you’re supposed to be bringing us products?” He clicked his tongue. “That’s an executable offense.”

“W-What? Y-You can’t be serious, you want to kill me?!”

“I don’t _want_ to kill you, Matty, but you guys...you’re really not making this easy for us.” Jeffy shrugged, before gesturing towards the other white guy in the room. “I could just have Skitch take you outside and shoot you in the street right now for fucking up so badly.” 

The blond, mohawked tough guy reclining on the zebra-print couch up against the wall, under a bunch of records there for decoration, smirked, lazily waving at the sweating Romanian. Skitch “The Unicorn” Benson, made for a good contrast to Yarnell, what with the white suit and pink undershirt he was rocking, and was good for getting rid of problem clients. The duo apparently had some kinda literary theme going on with the Lion and Unicorn thing, but Jefferson was of the opinion that the names were just a coincidence, Yarnell because he was a ferocious son of a bitch, and Skitch because he was gay as fuck. And gutted a guy with a pike. That probably contributed.

“But I’m not doing that, you notice?” Drawing Matty’s attention back to him, Jeffy grinned, leaning forward on the desk. “And that’s cause I wanna give you a chance. I like ya Matty, I really do, and that means you get an opportunity here.”

Instead of seeming grateful, the dipshit looked cautious. “What’s the opportunity?”

“Simple grab job. See, there are some trucks coming in-”

“What? Trucks?” Matty interrupted, eyes wide in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. We-We don’t rob trucks, that’s ridiculous! We are not common thieves-”

“Oh, of course, how could I forget,” Jeffy drawled, leaning back in his chair again. “You sell us stolen shit all the time, but you’re not the ones doing it. You’re just trading up, making use of our networks, right? You don’t do shit on your own, am I right?”

“Er, well-”

“Ah, but no, no, I’m wrong, you do shit for yourselves all the time. Lots of sick shit. Which you shovel onto us.”

“No, no, that’s not it! It is part of our arrangement, yes? We bring videos and, er, varying goods for fencing, and you distribute to customers. Wider distribution, better audience, higher pay!”

“Riiiight, right, thanks for the reminder. You Ibanescus ain’t thieves, you’re entertainers! You make the snuff films, hold the dog fights, sell the shit you rip off of whatever suckers you traffick, and we give you guys a high cut of all the profits while making sure nobody looks too close at everything you’re doing in the Narrows. Payment and protection. Quid pro quo. Man, I’m so glad you reminded me, so we’re on the same page.” Jefferson grinned, showing his teeth. “So, what exactly does it mean if you guys aren’t holding up your part of it?”

Matty got even paler. “It. Ah-”

“You know, there’s an interesting thing about business,” Jefferson interrupted, steepling his hands on his desk. “See, everyone’s out looking for profit. A business wants to make money above all else. Doesn’t matter what it is, what kinda role they have, they just want to make a profit. So when one business partners with another, there’s gotta be that assumption of profit, ya know? Both business have to have the idea that they’re going to profit from working together. But not just that. See, there’s gotta be trust there too.”

Jefferson stood up, pushing his chair back as he smiled down at a visibly sweating Matty. “Let’s say it’s like making an investment. You take your hard earned money and put it into some other guy’s hands with the trust they’ll do something with it and give back more to you. You pay in, you get paid, right? So you guys decided to invest your products in us with the _trust_ that we’ll pay it back to you. Am I right?”

“...Y-Y-Yes-”

“But, see, trust goes both way, right?” Jefferson walked up the window, staring out at his club with his hands clasped behind his back. “You deliver to us, we pay back to you, that’s your part. But on our part, we also put our necks on the line for you. We invest time and resources keeping your shit from stinking too much and bringing down fucking interpol on your heads.” Matty’s flinch was reflected in the window. “We put our trust in you, and you couldn’t hold up.”

Jefferson glanced over his shoulder, his pearly white teeth glinting in the light. “So, convince me. Why exactly shouldn’t we cut you loose?”

Matty’s eyes darted towards the door for a moment before he looked down, his hands clenched in his lap. “...W-W-What is the j-job?”

“Hah. Good boy.” Jefferson walked up behind Matty, clasping a hand to the shaking man’s shoulder, feeling him flinch as he loomed over him. “Now, this is going to be very simple. Ever hear of Daggett Industries? Rumors say they’re shipping out some new experimental drug to their labs in Gotham, something called Renuyu. What I want your boys to do is…”

\---3---

Uptown Gotham, otherwise known as Burnley, originally the name of it’s most populous neighborhood, was a very different place from the other major islands. For one thing, it was noticeably wealthier than its siblings. Even in its poorer neighborhoods, the streets were clean, well-maintained heat and water were the rule rather than a fortunate blessing, and the police actually arrived on time. Well, when they were allowed to.

Still, Gothamites loved to say that the homeless in Uptown had diamonds dropped in their cups, a thinly veiled dig at the island’s well-known Diamond District, where it was said several billion dollars worth of jewels and gemstones passed through each day. The whole island seemed to have a level of glitz and glamor that none of its siblings could get close to, Midtown’s heyday having long passed while Uptown’s star still rose.

Perhaps the best representation of that rising star was the Skyline Club, a popular establishment amongst Gotham’s wealthy and/or less reputable citizens situated at the top of a large skyscraper right near the center of the Diamond District, giving all of its patrons a fantastic view of the shining city below them, glittering like gems in the night. A stylish center of luxury amongst an already ritzy district, the Skyline Club embodied Uptown, in more ways than one.

It is in one of those ways that Uptown Gotham set itself apart from it siblings in yet another quite blatant manner. While Downtown was divided between antagonistic syndicates and Midtown held itself together through a coalition of mafias, Uptown was a united island. Street gangs still existed, of course, as they always would, but they had all been bound together under singular banners. 

The existing Uptown gangs, the Latino Unified Gang and the Burnley Town Massive, were coalitions of numerous smaller gangs brought together under the authority of the largest among them, and these gangs, in turn, paid tithe to the only mafia in Uptown, one far greater than any other in Gotham City.

The Falcone Crime Family had ruled Uptown Gotham for thirty years. Every inch of the island had been brought under the heel of Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, the Untouchable Emperor of Gotham City.

Mario Vincenzo Falcone took a deep drag of his cigar as he stared out at the city beneath him. The eldest son of Carmine Falcone stood tall by one of the large windows curling around his Skyline, allowing those granted access to view the beautiful sight of the Diamond District at night. Smoke drifted from his lips and he smiles, white teeth glinting out of a tanned face.

The Falcone Crime Family held a status unlike any other criminal organization in the United States. No other owned a city like they did. Their connections spread internationally, from China to Italy, and no officer in Gotham would dare breathe wrong when in the presence of a Falcone.

The Crimson Rose of the Falcone Family was entertaining guests that night. Behind him, Johnny “Frosty” Sabatino, the “Boss of Bleake Island” and head of the Sabatino Crime Family, cackled loudly, his arms spread over the back of the couch he slouched back in, curled around the giggling escorts accompanying him, his red suit bright against the white couch. Across from him, Able Crown of the BTM, dressed in the deep purple and black of the African-American mob, tried to continue his story, gesturing with one hand through his laughter, the other wrapped around the waist of his current beau. Sitting in the couch adjacent, Eduardo Otero, clad in the warm autumn colors of the LUG, ignored the two, instead whispering into the ear of his own paramour, a lovely Brazilian brought in for the occasion. The white-suited band was playing well, a calming jazz sounding out through the club, other guests chatting without a care.

The atmosphere was light. Here, above the city, the air could thin. Troubles forgotten, and luxuries indulged. Bread and circus.

Bright brown eyes flicked down, catching movement amongst the lights. Mario’s smile dropped as a black shape drifted over the buildings below, a small shape floating amongst a sea of light, all the more visible for its sudden darkness. 

“...What an ugly sight,” Mario muttered, pressing the cigar against the glass, over the shape. Ashes dropped to the floor.

It was about time they discussed business anyway. Someone had harmed a Falcone. 

Turning to face his guests, striding towards them with purpose in his steps, Mario “The Prince” Falcone had come to a decision. 

The Bat would die.

\---3---

**The Duquesne Mafia** : Pronounced Ducane (Doo-cain). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, this took a while. Still kind of in the set-up stage, so we're taking a look at the different parts of Gotham in this universe. Kinda mixed in some stuff from different medias for it. Anyway, hope you all enjoy the chapter and that you're all having a happy new years.
> 
> Indi: Happy new years to all you readers! Hope you're enjoying red's story and like the potential for where it may go!
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	4. A Meeting of Mobsters

** Chapter 4 **

“ _Oooh, is it a sin to fall for someone like you~?_ ” the young man up on stage crooned, his melodious voice drifting over the lounge’s guests. Like the other band members, the redhead was dressed in a well-fitting tuxedo, a bowtie and domino mask adding to the ensemble, though while the others wore black, the lead singer had a royal purple tux, decorated with lime green musical notes, standing out amongst the icy blues and whites of the Iceberg’s main stage.

Established in 1995 by Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, the Iceberg Lounge was easily the most popular nightclub in all of Downtown Gotham, beating out all competition in terms of scale and sheer style. Originally a small dance club and bar situated in the north-eastern district of Downtown Gotham, known to most as The Hill, years of repairs and renovations saw the popular club expand in size and scope. Now about the size of an opera house, the Iceberg Lounge stood tall and proud in a far wealthier neighborhood than it had originally stood in, the various “riff-raff” that previously populated it cleared out over the years to make room for those of wealth and taste.

The interior of the Lounge matched its name, consisting of numerous cozy areas surrounding a massive iceberg taking up the room’s center pool. Said areas included a large restaurant serving a myriad of delightful dishes and drinks for its patrons, a wide dance floor in front of the large stage that took up the Lounge’s north-western wall, a large bar curling around the restaurant’s wall that carried numerous expensive cocktails from all over the world, and numerous booths set apart from those areas, where interested patrons could spend some time apart from it all, discussing business or pleasure or whatever else they wanted where they couldn’t be seen or heard. And if wealthier patrons desired to watch over their lessers from on high, they could do so from the expensive balcony booths that overlooked the lounge from the second floor. Or, should they prefer even greater privacy, the lounge had rooms for that too.

In addition, the decorations of the Lounge added greatly to the building’s icy aquatic aesthetic. Large aquariums spread across the walls of the Lounge to give the patrons a fantastic view of the numerous rare fish and sharks imported by its wealthy owner and numerous crystal lights and chandeliers set across the room added to the arctic impressions. In fact, while most assumed the iceberg centered at the core of the lounge had to be some sort of sculpture, due to how freezing the typically warm lounge would have to be to keep a massive chunk of ice like that frozen, those in the know were well aware that Mr. Cobblepot spared no expense for his precious lounge, and a series of carefully placed cryogenic generators beneath the floor were there to keep the iceberg afloat.

“Neil sounds good tonight,” the man himself muttered, a soft smile on his round face as he stared down at his life’s work from a balcony booth. 

“That ‘e does, sir,” Tracey replied, leaning against the booth’s entrance with a faint smile. Neil Criss, Oswald’s “Songbird”, was a lovely singer with an almost hypnotic voice. Fantastic for setting the right tone, which all depended on what Oswald wanted for a given night.

Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot himself, scion of the noble Cobblepot family, was not a conventionally attractive man, a fact he was painfully aware off. He was shorter than the average man, had a noticeably broad and portly figure, and his narrow nose looked nearly pointed. His thick black hair had thinned over the years, his already uneven vision had worsened with age, and a childhood injury had left him with a somewhat stumbling gait, his obvious limp following all the way up into his late forties. Truly, he was a man far past his previously lanky prime. 

And yet, he couldn’t truly bring himself to care. The young man he had been had none of the wealth he now enjoyed. That man didn’t wear fur coats bought from international pirates, didn’t enjoy classy black suits tailored exactly to his body type, and certainly didn’t have the palace he now called his own. Hell, he didn’t even have his family manor, rightfully returned to him a mere seventeen years ago. Despite being born to a wealthy family, Oswald Cobblepot had lived a life of near poverty for most of his youth, and he was proud to consider himself a self-made man; one far better than the man he had been. 

Pushing back from the railing and out of his reminiscing, Oswald turned his monocled gaze to his current aide. Tracey Buxton, known as Lark amongst Oswald’s criminal connections, was a rare find, a brutal young Cockney blonde who could serve the dual role of bodyguard and organizer, her bright mind easily planning out where and when certain employees would be needed for each night while her forceful personality kept them all in line. Dressed in a white cocktail dress with black stripes along the sides, as well as fishnet stockings and black heels, the short-haired blonde stood out amongst the Lounge’s black-suited waiters and entertainers, as befitting her position as one of the Lounge’s managers.

“Have all the attendees arrived and been seated?” he asked as he began walking, heading out of the booth and towards the stairs, Tracey following easily behind him.

“Course, sir. Supper is on, and we’ve ‘ad no complaints so far,” she replied promptly, glancing at the map of the lounge on her tablet as voices buzz in her headset. “Last to arrive was the Japanese party, sir. Mister Akahara is very ‘appy about the salmon.”

“Ah, lovely. I assume they chose to sit far from our friends from the Red Lotus.” 

“Yeah, the yaks are sittin’ far ways from the tris as possible, but tryin’ not to seem too cozy to the reds. Italian reds, not the, er-”

“Not to worry, I know what you meant. Though it’s not like the Russians wear a lot of red these days.”

“Right, true blue and all that. Speakin’ of blues, Mister Maroni sends ‘is compliments too, but Mister Duquesne is complainin’ ‘bout the wait.”

“Mr. Duquesne can learn to be patient, I’m sure. There’s protocol to be followed, after all.” 

“Course sir.” 

Oswald smiled as they arrived down at the main floor of his lounge, acting the genial host as he greeted a few of patrons. He smiled warmly, made smalltalk when needed, and excused himself from each table once the patrons were satisfied, a familiar routine performed naturally by a man who knew how to work with people. 

By the time Oswald left the main floor to head down into the depths of his lounge, the room seemed even brighter, his guests all smiles as they marveled at how generous he was.

“Layin’ on a tad fick there, sir,” Tracey commented as they walked down the next set of stairs, a little smirk on her face.

“Everyone enjoys a little attention every now and then,” Oswald replied, “And being attended to by an establishment’s proprietor…”

“Makes ‘em even ‘appier.”

“Exactly.” Oswald grinned as the two of them walk into the second part of his wonderful establishment: The Iceberg Casino. 

Full of bright golden lights mixed in with sharp red and blue decor and built directly under the lounge proper, the Iceberg Casino, in a way, mirrored Oswald himself, acting as a den of sin and vice for those seeking more than the simple pleasures of his icy world above. Though, while the casino did act as a fantastic trap for those addicted to the thrill of gambling, along with the unwary tourist looking to truly experience Gotham’s nightlife, the lounge’s underbelly did serve another function.

The slot machines were dimmer than usual, the numerous gamblers that normally populated the casino cleared out with the most sincere of apologies, and the roulette and billiard tables had been both deserted and shifted away from the center of the casino to make room for a massive, round dining table, currently seating some of the most powerful individuals in Gotham City’s enormous underworld, along with their personal guests and bodyguards.

“Good evening, Candace,” Oswald greeted his second manager with a genial smile, which she promptly returned as she adjusted her glasses. 

Candace Leslie Barker, otherwise known as Raven, or Candy to her friends, was a young black woman with a fantastic mind for finances, along with a generally friendly demeanor that made her quite pleasant to work with. Wearing a black cocktail dress with white stripes to match Tracey’s, along with gold bracelets, bangles and earrings, Candy cut a striking figure and a near perfect counterpart to her fellow manager, her long black hair done up in a tight bun while the rest dangled around her head.

“Good evening, Mr. Cobblepot, Ms. Buxton” she replied pleasantly, marking off something on her own tablet as the Morikawa twins, Akiko “Red Crane” and Hinako “Black Pheasant”, both wearing lovely red dresses with black heels, continued clearing the empty plates from the table as Tracey gave her a cheerful little wave, “I’m happy to report that the evening has been going quite smoothly so far, aside from a few complaints about the wait.”

“Yes, I heard.” Oswald turned his pleasant smile towards Carlton “Gambol” Duquesne, the large, neatly-trimmed bearded man glowering back at him, his dark brown eyes narrowed in irritation. “I hope the wait wasn’t too long, sir. As I am sure you are aware, running the legitimate sides of our business does, unfortunately, take a great deal of time out of our schedules.”

“...Sure, I’m aware,” the head of Gotham’s largest African-American mafia replied, sitting up straight in his chair, his words clipped and tinged with annoyance, “We all have places to be though, so you can forgive some impatience, I’m _sure_.” The don of Grand Avenue, Gambol wore a crisp, black suit with an indigo tie, and a blue hankerchief in its breast pocket, his ringed fingers clasped on the table. He had a short, well-groomed full beard and short hair, shaved close around the sides of his head.

Amongst his sparse entourage was Kaiman “Headhunter” Holt, an enforcer turned underboss with a short, silver mohawk and sparse facial hair, dressed in a similar black suit and taking notes for his irritable employer, and Darren “Cinderblock” Vickers, a massive bald metahuman with stoney skin, also dressed in a well-tailored suit as he stood tall behind Gambol. Bringing Vickers was an interesting show of power, and not an unreasonable one, given the quality of bodyguards most of the gangsters had here.

“Of course, of course,” Oswald replied, removing his coat and handing it to Akiko, before taking his own seat at the meeting table. He smiled, steepling his hands over his stomach as he looked over the meeting’s attendees. Gathered at his table were some of the most dangerous people in Gotham, and he had to actively force his smile from growing too excited at that fact. Experience made it easy, but oh the temptation...

Gotham was a dour city, all blacks and greys, maybe with the occasional deep, dark blue, but its underworld was colorful, as though they’d leeched every bit of brightness from the hellhole they called home. Reds, blues, whites, greens, all bright and vibrant. Even the dour wore color in Cobblepot’s kingdom, and that was quite obvious here, spread around his table.

Right to the left of Oswald were the top two of the Blue Hook Bratva, along with their two most fearsome enforcers and one extra guest. The current head of Gotham’s own Russian Mafiya was Yuri Velimirovic Dimitrov, the “Pakhan” running operations in Gotham for the Norilavatskaya Bratva back in the Motherland. 

Dressed well in an icy-blue ensemble consisting of a vest, white undershirt, and slacks for the occasion, his usual polar fur coat hanging off his chair, Dimitrov was rough man with light brown hair shaved close to his head, along with a neatly-trimmed mustache and goatee. Despite his generally muscular and rough appearance, Dimitrov had a cheerful smile curling his scarred lips, his bright blue eyes hidden by a pair of designer sunglasses.

His companion for the night, his “sovietnik”, if Oswald was remembering his terms correctly, was Fyodor Semyonovich Altukhov, an older man with long, dark hair tied back behind his head and tanned skin, a short, rough, full beard covering his mouth while dark blue tattoos crept up his neck, giving him a generally more intimidating appearance that his affable superior, though his ability to intimidate paled in comparison to the enormous enforcers Dimitrov had brought as the evening’s bodyguards.

The Abramovici twins, Boris and Konstantin, the “Hammer and Sickle” of the Blue Hook Bratva, were two massive Russian men, standing 6’10” and 6’9” respectively. Formerly conjoined twins, the two had been separated early on in life, leaving both down one arm. That didn’t stop the brothers from becoming two of the most brutal enforcers Gotham had ever known, especially when aided by the robotic prosthetics they’d gained as replacement arms, both bright red and plated to mimic their natural, impressively muscular arms. The twins, both bald-headed and covered in tattoos, stood behind their boss in arm-bearing dress shirts and black slacks, the picture of professional brutes. Ah, to have them working for him...two sets of twins would be just lovely.

Back to business, the remaining member of the Russian entourage was actually Ukrainian, and a boss in her own right. Alexandra “Blue-Eye” Vasilyevna Kosov was the head of the Odessa Mob, otherwise known as the Ukrainian Mafia of Little Odessa, and quite the fearsome woman, having inherited control of the group after the assassination of her father by “unknown assailants” who certainly weren’t Russian in the slightest. Dressed in a sharp white suit with a blue undershirt, her platinum blonde hair tied back in a ponytail that drooped down her neck, Kosov’s most distinctive feature was easily her false-left eye, a spherical sapphire fit perfectly in her empty socket, though the blue lipstick was a nice touch.

The fact that she hadn’t brought along any member of her own mafia _and_ had arrived with the Russians was a rather blatant show of trust on the smaller mob’s part, one that had fascinating implications. The Ukrainians had quite the smuggling network throughout the city, but didn’t quite have the manpower, nor the firepower, of their direct rivals. Quite the arrangement, one that wouldn’t go unnoticed by the others at the table. Perhaps the Ukrainians were vying for a position in the Somerset Alliance…

Perhaps, perhaps not. Moving along, the next ensemble happened to be the Lucky Hand Triad, Gotham’s premiere Chinese mafia, the leader of whom was Jiang Lau, a middle-aged mobster with well-combed black hair dressed in a grey pinstripe suit with a white undershirt and a pale blue tie. Professional and well-kept, as he preferred, the “dai lo” of the Lucky Hand was an unassuming man with a head for finances and a skill at strategy that kept his organization at the top of Chinatown’s various criminal organizations, many of whom would gladly take their place at the slightest hint of weakness.

His guest was Ekin Tzu, a younger man with a narrower face and slighter build, sitting a tad taller than his superior in a Somerset blue suit, teal undershirt, yellowish-tan tie, and a red lotus pin displayed prominently on his lapel to complete his ensemble. Popular amongst both the younger and older crowds of the Triad for his charisma and professionalism, Tzu was almost guaranteed to be Lau’s successor, though there were plenty of rumors that the older man resented his more popular subordinate.

Rounding out the Triad’s trio was a man known merely as the Silver Monkey, a masked enforcer in a silver three-piece with a black undershirt, a fiercely scowling silver monkey-mask concealing his face entirely, its long white hair covering the rest of his head. Despite his eccentricities, the man was a skilled and brutal assassin for the Triad, often sent to deal with “upstarts” attempting to move into their territory when he wasn’t keeping his employer safe from retribution.

The next group was easily the most dangerous of the Four Somersets as the second most powerful criminal organization in the city at an estimated 2,000 members split up amongst three mafias, the chief of which was the Maroni Crime Family, the Kings of Little Italy, headed by Salvatore “The Boss” Maroni.

A tall, hefty, and broad-shouldered man with receding brown hair wearing a dark blue suit and a checkered white and blue undershirt, a style every other man in his group seemed to copy, just with different shirts, along with a navy blue foulard tie, two silver rings, and a golden wristwatch, Sal Maroni was one of the bigger success stories amongst organized crime in Gotham, only overshadowed by his chief rival, Carmine Falcone himself. While the Maronis had always been a dynasty within Gotham’s Little Italy, it was Salvatore’s father, Luigi, who had set them up as the true bosses of that district following the fall of Cosa Nostra, and Sal himself promptly took his inherited advantages and used them well to form an Alliance bigger than any other in Gotham’s history. Well, perhaps not bigger, but certainly the most diverse.

An Alliance of Equals, the Somersets were Maroni’s greatest success, one made possible by his own Family’s expansion into Midtown’s East End, where his Subordinate Families now ran things. The first and most prominent of those was the Zucco Family, run by “Fat” Anthony Zucco, the eldest of the Zucco Brothers. An overweight man with a grey, receding hairline of his own, Tony Zucco was the man in charge of the Family’s main “transportation” business, namely running guns and drugs through the various mobs of Midtown and out of the city to overseas or mainland buyers. Tony had kept his hat on for the evening, likely to hide his growing baldness, and seemed somewhat on edge, a contrast to his confident boss. Perhaps his instincts as a long-time enforcer made him prone to caution.

Moving on, the next major underboss for the Maroni’s was Edison “Eddie” Skeever, the head of the Skeever Family. A lean black man with a short hair, a thin mustache and a dark goatee, Eddie looked far more relaxed than his fellow underboss, idly tapping his fingers on the table with a cold little frown, his narrowed brown eyes focused on the Reds across from them. 

The last member of the group was another underboss and Salvatore’s bodyguard for the night, though he seemed far too at ease for that position. Francesco “Angel” Carbone was a man with wide brown eyes and an ugly smile, his greying brown hair also noticeably receding much like his cohorts and swept back for the night, a change from its usual messiness. He also seemed to buck the trend of dark blue suits for the group, as he had gone instead with a black suit with a blue undershirt. Quite daring indeed.

Last of the Somerset Alliance and the final group taking up the left side of his table was the Duquesne Mafia, headed by Carlton “Gambol” Duquesne, a man with perhaps the most ironic nickname in Gotham, coined by Jonathan “Johnny the Swami” Witts, god rest his soul. Poor bastard.

Next up was the delightful host of the evening, one Lewis “Lew” Moxon, the head of the Moxon Syndicate, who was dressed in a rather ugly olive green suit, somewhat befitting the man known as the “Cockroach”, a far more fitting and far less pleasant nickname for a man running an organization of 1,500. Though the elderly gangster appeared to be traveling light tonight; his only companions were one of his lieutenants, Vincenzo Ricorso, the “manager” of the elder’s “security teams” and former caporegime to the late Salvatore Valestra, and Philo Zeiss, his augmented bodyguard. Which was odd, because he had scheduled a party of four. 

Regardless, the next group at the table was actually Moxon’s direct inferior, though Erin “The Morrigan” McKillen certainly would have resented such a designation. A lean and muscular woman in a dark green pantsuit, the McKillen Mob’s apparent uniform for the night, McKillen was quite possibly the most stereotypically Irish woman Oswald had ever encountered. Red-haired, heavily freckled, and green-eyed with a long acid scar seared down her right cheek, and easily one of the most irreverent and ill-tempered people in the city, McKillen was a brutal crimelord with around 700 subordinates, an impressive feat considering her mother, Cristin “Big Ma” McKillen, née O’Byrne, had outright robbed the position from Sean Riley, the previous head of Gotham’s Irish Mob.

No one would ever dare accuse the McKillens of failing to earn their position of power though. Not if they wished to keep their teeth.

Interestingly, if her sister had been in attendance, the McKillens would have been the third set of twins at the table. Gotham seemed to have a propensity for criminal siblings. Of course, dear Shannon McKillen had decided to be the black sheep of the family and actually go into a legitimate business, at least to some degree. Word was she was working as an accountant in Metropolis, though Erin, of course, was very particular about letting anyone know of her sister’s status. Indeed, she had nearly started a war when a Maroni capo named Rafael Santini made the ill-informed decision of suggesting something unfortunate could befall her twin. Santini hadn’t made it out of that bar, and his entourage was returned sans teeth.

Speaking of said bar, McKillen’s own entourage for the night included Jackie O’Riordan, the proprietor of the Clover Bar and head of the Four Corner Clovers, and Mickey “The Mink” Sullivan, the co-head of the Sullivan Family and a frequent hitman for the mobs, both Irish gangs operating under the McKillen’s authority. O’Riordan was a tall, well-built man with neck-length black hair, tied back loosely, and a short beard while Sullivan was a thin and wiry hitman with short brown hair and a slight stubble, his jacket draped over the back of his chair while he tapped his long fingers on the table.

While all the Irish Mob members at the table were dangerous in their own rights, perhaps the most, aside from McKillen herself, was Derek Mitchell, otherwise known as the Corrosive Man of the Cauldron. A tall, bald, and broad-shouldered man with yellow-green eyes and pale, chartreuse-tinted skin, Mitchell was a metahuman with the ability to produce a sort of corrosive acid from his body, which he put to good use as an enforcer and killer for the Irish. A smarter tactic than attempting to strike out on his own, which would immediately get him hunted down by every criminal looking to keep their power in Gotham, a fate that befell many an arrogant meta.

The organization who most commonly led these so-called “meta-hunts” was also currently represented at Oswald’s table. The Falcone Crime Family, otherwise known as “The Roman’s Empire”, was the single largest criminal organization in Gotham City at 25 _thousand_ known members and affiliates, and was quite easily the most powerful mafia currently active in the United States, only really rivaled in Gotham by the Somerset Alliance, who needed that coalition to even survive against the “Emperors of Uptown”.

Representing the Falcone Family for that night was Mario “The Prince” Falcone, heir to the empire. A handsome man in his late thirties, Mario looked a great deal like a younger version of his father, though the Falcone heir preferred to stay clean-shaven, his short dark hair swept back to show a near-flawless and darkly tanned face, quirked in a lazy smile. Dressed in a crimson suit with a white undershirt and matching red tie, flecked with gold roses, Mario had become a major player in Gotham’s underworld as his father gradually granted him more and more authority over the Family while he handled business overseas, clearly intending to ensure a smooth transition of power when he eventually retired. 

And wasn’t that an interesting thought? The Roman, Gotham’s greatest crime lord, willingly handing over the reins to the younger generation. It was enough to make a man feel old.

On Mario’s right sat his plus-one for the night, Jonathan “Johnny” Viti, son of Carla Viti née Falcone and the late Felice Viti. A broad, burly man with a dark-brown bowl-cut, Viti was dressed similarly to his cousin, but with a noticeably more magenta jacket, favoring his own family’s colors, and had forgone a tie in favor of a napkin, continuing to dig into the large plate of pasta in front of him. Somewhat disrespectful, but as the heir to Chicago’s largest crime family and nephew of The Roman, some disrespect could be tolerated.

The third and final member of the Falcone Prince’s entourage was one Victor Zsasz, one of the most prolific murderers in Gotham City and easily the Falcone Family’s most effective hitman. Dressed in a darker red suit with a black undershirt, his gloved hands busy cutting up the rare and dripping steak he was eating, the Gotham City Slasher, a pale, lean man with closely shaved blond hair, seemed disturbingly at ease in his current settings, particularly considering he had lost nearly everything in that very casino.

Formerly a member of Gotham City’s elite upper-class, Zsasz had a truly terrible string of misfortune utterly ruin his once peaceful life, starting with the sudden deaths of his parents. His resulting downward spiral brought him lower than a man born with a wealth had any right to go, until he found his true calling in life. And then when gambling turned out to be losing him far more than he gained, he found a second one. 

What a fortunate coincidence Mario Falcone happened to be at the Iceberg Casino that very night. Certainly wasn’t a result of an anonymous tip off over a wealthy idiot stuck in an eternal rut. It truly was fortunate for the nearly destitute millionaire, longing for a purpose in life. And so, Mario brought Zsasz into the fold, intending for him to be yet another rich fool in a lifelong debt to the Family, up until it was discovered that Zsasz had an almost fanatical zeal directed towards repaying his benefactors and an impressive talent for murder. The rest was history.

Moving along from the past, the last group at the table was Gotham’s own Yakuza branch, the Aosagibi Association. Headed by one Yoshikazu Akahara, an average looking Japanese man dressed in a black suit with a pin on his lapel, the kanji reading “blue heron”, the Association had an interesting position in Gotham’s underworld. 

While it was a major organization in its own right that held an unchallenged grip on Miagani Island, Gotham’s easternmost island, it was stuck in a rather dependent position. Aside from the fact that it was a branch of the much larger Morozumi Clan, based in the Japanese city of Sapporo, the Association was deeply indebted to the Falcone Family, who had magnanimously supported the yakuza’s take over of Miagani during their war against the Guzzo and Taniuchi Families. So while the Aosagibi Association did technically have dominion over an entire island in Gotham, albeit one of the more minor ones, they lacked the sort of authority held by their peers, and were largely, if unofficially, regarded as one of the Falcone Family’s subordinate organizations.

The remaining members of Akahara’s group included Nikko Morita, a somewhat overweight bald man and Yoringa Yada, his broad-shouldered and goateed bodyguard. Altogether, not a particularly impressive lot when compared to the true crimelords sitting at Oswald’s table.

“Well, in the interest of ensuring we are all able to meet our other obligations, shall we begin this meeting?” Oswald began, smiling pleasantly at each of his guests before turning his gaze to the evening’s host. “Mr. Moxon?”

“Gladly,” the elderly gangster bit out, taking the lit cigar from his mouth and scowling as he tapped the table with his other finger. “You all know why we’re here.”

“We do?” Mr. Dimitrov spoke up, his lips quirked in amusement. “I must have replaced memo; I don’t seem to know why the downtown’s cockroach king has brought us here.” 

“Y-Yes, of course we do!” Lew barked, already looking agitated. “We’re here for one reason and one reason only-”

“To address your fuck up with my cousin?” Mr. Falcone interrupted with a lazy smile, earning a smattering of laughter from a few of the bosses as he leaned back in his chair.

“I...Well, yes, I was hoping to address the...incident at Gaspare’s, Mr. Falcone,” Lew continued, fiddling with his cigar again. The man really shouldn’t try playing poker anytime soon; he had far too many tells. “In fact, I was specifically hoping to address the matter of the… vigilante who...interrupted our-that meeting and hospitalized my subordinate.”

“And my cousin.”

“A-And your cousin, of course.”

“How is Dominic, by the way?” Don Maroni asked, smiling casually. “I heard he was already home.”

“Yes, we’re taking care of things on our own end.” Mr. Falcone smiled back, keeping cordial with his Family’s chief rival. “We do have far better doctors on staff than those wasting away at Gotham General, after all.”

“Sure, sure. Well hey, give him my regards. Might send ‘im some flowers if he’s not feeling too laid out.”

“How bad was it?” Ms. McKillen abruptly asked, an eyebrow raised curiously. “Heard a certain someone piledrived him through a grand piano.”

“Erm, that was actually what I was-”

“I don’t think it was a full piledriver,” Mr. Falcone interrupted, looking thoughtful, “More so...Hm. I’m afraid I’m not especially familiar with wrestling terms.”

“Really? Heh, then c’mon by the Clover sometime. We’ve got a lot of guys that could introduce ya to the world of pro wrestling.” Ms. McKillen slapped Mr. O’Riordan’s back for emphasis, the bartender/crimelord wincing at the force. “Fridays and Sundays always got something on, but we could probably get something nice setup for ya.” Hm. So Falcone now had an invitation to visit McKillen’s territory. Interesting.

“Could we stay on topic?”

“Y-Yes, exactly-”

“Aw, c’mon Duquesne,” Ms. McKillen spoke over Lew, grinning with narrowed eyes at a glowering Gambol. “Don’t be like that. Hey, what kinda sports do ya like? You strike me as a football kinda guy.”

“Really? I would guess basketball.”

“Don’t be an ass, Dimitrov.” 

Mr. Dimitrov smirked at Ms. McKillen’s deadpan response, shrugging exaggeratedly. “What? I am merely suggesting. Is not meant as insult. Gam, you are not insulted, yes?”

“Not in the slightest. Just really damn irritated that it’s taking us this long to get to the actual topic tonight. Moxon.”

“Eh? W-What?” Too confused, Lewis. Keep up.

“Control the room. You’re supposed to be the host here. Act like it.”

“Now now, we’re all friends here,” Mr. Falcone spoke up again, still grinning, “It’s not dear Lew’s fault he’s getting a tad senile in his old age.”

“S-Senile!? How dare you! I am completely mentally fit!” Temper, Lewis. You’re showing far too much weakness.

“Oh? You are? That’s odd. I could’ve sworn that wasn’t the case, because otherwise that means you did intentionally get my cousin’s arm shattered while he was supposed to be under your protection.” Ah, now that was cruel. Poor Lewis was left sputtering indignantly as Mr. Falcone smirked at him.

“I-I-I had _nothing_ to do with that!” Wrong reply.

“No? Then you weren’t in charge of security for that meeting?”

“I wasn’t! That was all Grissom’s responsibility!”

“And? Isn’t Grissom supposed to be your guy?” Ms. McKillen pointed out, prompting Lewis to glare at her.

“You’re not involved in this!”

“HEY!” Only to immediately go rigid as McKillen glared right back with an enraged scowl. “ _You_ invited _me_! That means I’m fuckin’ involved, geezer! So why don’t ya stop beating off around the dead horse and tell the rest of the fuckin’ class why you’re such an incompetent fuckwit who couldn’t even handle one fuckin’ meeting without gettin’ alla your fuckin’ guys beat into the floor?!”

“Probably cuz he set it up.” The silence was deafening as every attendant in the room turned their gazes towards Mr. John Viti, the Roman’s nephew taking the pause to slurp up another strand of spaghetti. Poor Lew seemed the worst off as the silence dragged on, a vein visibly throbbing in his temple as he stared at the Viti scion, blatantly enraged at the insinuation, yet too aware of how badly things could go for him if he called him out.

Ms. McKillen had no such reservations. “Oi, Johnny-boy, explain that to the rest of us.”

Mr. Viti shrugged. “Makes the most sense if ya think about it. Mox calls Dom over ta talk, gets Griss ta hold things, then has his freak over there dress up as a bat, beat the shit out of Griss and Dom’s guys, and then comes along saying how we need ta do what he says to keep the same thing from happening ta us. It’s like getting a shop to pay protection, simple shit.”

“Wh-Th-That is absurd! Why in the world would I do something like that?!”

“Your hearing going or something? It sets things up great for ya. Griss loses face, you get my cousins personally involved cause Dom got the shit beat out of him, and you can sell all the bosses some line about how you can take care of things, just as long as they’re sending guns and money to you and letting you run things.”

“B-But why would I?! I-G-Grissom is my own subordinate!”

“And he’s more popular than you.” Lewis flinched as Viti continued speaking. “He speaks for you at this point, so you wanted to prove yourself. It’s kinda like how Lau hates Tzu. Everybody knows it, but no one says to avoid pissing them off.” And, of course, both Lau and Tzu had stiffened right at those words. Mr. Lau scowled, glaring at Mr. Viti as Mr. Tzu seemed uncomfortable, adjusting his tie.

Mr. Viti seemed entirely unbothered by Mr. Lau’s ire, continuing almost obliviously. “It makes sense to me.” And then he went back to his pasta. 

Mr. Falcone chuckled, shaking his head slowly before smiling at Lewis. “What an interesting theory my cousin has put forward, Mr. Moxon. I don’t suppose you could prove it wrong?”

“Wh-Wh-O-Of course I can! I-I, I-”

“I was with Mr. Moxon the night of the meeting,” Mr. Zeiss cut in, “Both of us were at the Wayne fundraising, and there are plenty of witnesses who could tell you the same.” Honestly, that was a terrible move on Zeiss’s part. Leaving aside the simple fact that pointing out witnesses could corroborate his location would instead plant the seed of doubt that Moxon deliberately maneuvered things to establish alibis, a subordinate interrupting their employer only made that employer look incompetent and weak.

And, of course, Mr. Viti latched onto that first fact. “Yeah, sure, people saw a bald guy in a suit with Don Moxon. Not like you couldn’t dress up any of your guys to play being him.”

“Now now, Johnny, you do have to give Mr. Moxon a chance to defend himself.” Mr. Falcone smiled again at Lew. “Again, Mr. Moxon. Your defense?”

“D-D-Defense?! I-I am not on trial!”

“Can I move for an execution if he is?” Mr. Duquesne abruptly asked, clearly irritated, “He’s certainly guilty of _wasting my time_.”

Both Zeiss and Ricorso straightened, glaring at Duquesne as Holt paused in his writing, glancing at his boss and then at a sputtering Moxon.

“Huh. So the Bat is the Sicilian?” Mr. Dimitrov spoke up, raising an eyebrow at the increasingly agitated Moxon Syndicate. “Would explain many things. Ah, but what to tell lower gangs? Knowing such a secret could be sooooo bad for so many.”

“Zeiss is not the Bat!” Mr. Ricorso abruptly shouted, getting to his feet. “Do you even realize how many of my fucking men that freak put in the hospital!?” 

“Ah, hospital! Not morgue! Funny thing, yes?” Dimitrov’s smile was cheerful, almost giddy. “So many beaten, but not dead? Is very, very strange, is not?”

“I swear he’s playing up that accent,” Mr. Skeever muttered as Don Maroni stood.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen! And ladies, of course,” Don Maroni began, smiling as he gestured, Ms. McKillen promptly flipping him off in return, “I think we’re gettin’ a little too of track here. Sure, Lew’s got plenty to hide, don’t we all? But I’m sure he’s not hiding a Bat in his belltower.”

“Belfry,” Mr. Skeever automatically corrected.

“No, I really don’t think that’s one‘a the secrets he’s got rattlin’ around up in that old brain‘a his.”

“What secrets?! Goddammit, stop with all of this nonsense and start speaking sense for once! What in God’s name do you think I’m hiding!?” Oh, Lew, no. Why in the world would you say that?

Don Maroni smiled, of course, genial and friendly. “Probably all those papers on the Seville contract.”

Lewis Moxon went white, showing for all the world just how badly Don Maroni had rattled him. Showing for all the world just how weak he really was.

“The Seville contract?” Oh ho. Even Mr. Falcone sounded intrigued, staring up at the Don on his own little stage.

“Exactly. Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, you ever heard of a little place a bit south of Gotham called...ah, what was it?”

Mr. Skeever answered “The Seville Wetlands.” right as Mr. Zucco, smiling for the first time that night, answered “Slaughter Swamp.”

“Yeah, yeah, that was it. Slaughter Swamp. Seems everybody’s old pal, Roland Daggett, has been lookin’ into-”

“STOP!” All eyes turned to Lewis, pale and shaking as he stood and glared at Don Maroni. “Y-You...You can’t. You can’t just-”

“Lewis.” He whirled towards Oswald, his mouth gaping like a fish on land. Oswald kept his face even, trying not to smile. “Sit down, please. You don’t want to make a scene.”

Lewis continued to gape, unable to muster words as Zeiss placed a hand on his shoulder and slowly lowered him back into his seat. To see such a power in Gotham, so frail and petty...dear God, it was disgusting.

Don Maroni’s voice pulled everyone back to the room, towards him and his jaunty smile. “Heh, thanks Penguin. So, as I was saying, seems Daggett wants the Swamp. He’s been buying up all the land after the feds declared it unprotected, and looks like he’s planning to build some labs down there.”

“Something in the water, perhaps?” Mr. Lau offered, his anger faded to curiosity.

“Which construction companies are working it?” Ms. McKillen cut right to the heart of the matter, drawing eyes back to a smiling Maroni.

“I guess we’ll have to see, huh? I don’t think anything’s final yet, right, Lew?” He smirked at Lewis, who finally regained his composure and glared back. So, of course, Don Maroni had to drive another nail in. “I think there’s more than enough time for some guys to put in some bids for the contract, don’t you?”

Lewis sputtered, a dying engine to the end.

“Hmph. So at least one part of this meeting was worth something,” Mr. Duquesne said, looking a tad less irritable, miracles upon miracles.

“I believe we do still need to discuss the matter of the Batman,” Mr. Akahara spoke up, finally letting his voice be heard. It seemed the suggestion was enough to bolster Lewis, who immediately nodded, desperate for a lifeline.

“YES! Yes, yes, exactly! Yes, we have to-”

“You mean Moxon’s Bat? Eh, is no problem of ours.” Ah, how cruel, Mr. Dimitrov. You could almost hear the windbag deflate.

“N-No, no, you don’t, you don’t understand-”

“The Bat is something of a problem.” Unexpected agreement from Mr. Skeever. Would it be enough to save the cockroach? “He’s been hitting the Romanians. No disrespect, Viti, but whoever he is, he’s causing problems, and I doubt Moxon is pulling his strings.” Viti shrugged, his part done.

“Yeah, he has been harassing some of the dipshits around downtown.” And commiseration from Ms. McKillen. Less unexpected, as she operated in the same region, but would it be enough? “He is just one psycho though. I’ll put the word out-”

“Wait!” Ah, Lewis, no. Things were going so well for you, you revolting little creature. “I-I...If you bastards can’t see the danger we’re in because of that freak, then I’m going to handle things! I’m declaring an open bounty on the Batman!”

“How much?” Remarkably blunt, Lark. Alas, blunt instruments will not puncture the windbag. Not even the stylus Tracey was using to note down Lewis’s sum would suffice.

“Ten thousand dollars!” ….What?

The room stilled as everyone stared at Moxon. This was not the silence of the enthralled though; no, it was merely the silence of-

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Ah, thank you Ms. McKillen. She let out a little breath, unable or unsure if she should laugh, lips spread in amazed amusement. “You seriously want to put ten thousand on the big bad Bat?”

“I-Well, yes, of course!” Moxon blustered, “Ten thousand is a perfectly respectable-”

“Lew, we make millions. _You_ make millions. Fuckin’ Falcone over there is a billionaire.” Still amused, still amazed, not a hint of anger. “You’re swearing up and down that this asshole’s the new AntiChrist and you want to put ten grand on him??”

Moxon blinks, finally realizing his folly. Ricorso had his head in his hands and Zeiss appeared rigid in second-hand humiliation. “I…”

“Well, if the Bat’s worth that much, I guess we were all worried about nothin’.” Viti grinned at Moxon, a low round of chuckling starting up around the table. Oswald glanced at Tracey, and she nodded, still making sure to note the amount. “Heh, the ten grand Bat. What a worthless-”

And that was when the lights cut out.

The emergency lights, not the typical back-ups, were on in an instant, bathing the room in red as each bodyguard immediately moved to guard their principle, eyes on each other for the slightest hint of treachery as the bosses one and all went silent, alert.

“Lark, Raven?”

“I don’t know sir, I’m not getting anything!” “Shit, nuffin’! We gotta-” Both girls immediately whirled to stand by Oswald as the crash rang out while the Morikawas dove for the nearest slot machines. Both immediately ducked, excellent reflexes, as the body flew over Oswald’s head, landing with a crash right on his table.

“JESUS FUCK!” “Where the-?!” “Shit, Deke, get-” “Son of a-” “Well then.” “Everyone, calm down!” **“Oswald Cobblepot.”**

Oswald stood and turned, staring at thing standing in _his_ casino. It was large. Very large. Staring out at them with pure white eyes, its body wreathed in black. Its horns, ears, stood like points. Was that a mouth? It became clear as it spoke again.

 **“Yoshikazu Akahara. Gambol Duquesne. Erin McKillen. Yuri Dimitrov. Jiang Lau,”** it stated their names, slowly, carefully, keeping its eyes straight ahead, before it stared to Oswald’s side, directly at Moxon. **”Lew Moxon.”** Then ahead again. **“Maroni.”** And to the right. **”Falcone.”**

Its gaze turned straight ahead again, at Oswald, though it could have been staring at any one of them with those blank, white eyes. **“Every last one of you is a parasite draining the life from my city. Twenty-four hours. Give yourselves to the police or the government. I don’t care which. Gotham is mine. _Get. Out._ ”**

Oswald stared at the creature, the...No. No, not a creature. Not some nightmare, just some _goddamn maniac IN A COSTUME- “KILL HIM!”_

It took a moment for Oswald to notice he had shouted, and in that moment both twins had opened up with the submachine guns stored in the deactivated slot machines. The Bat moved and then there was LIGHT blinding searing god his ears were ringing-

When Oswald blinked the stars from his eyes, the Bat was gone, the proper lights were on, and everyone was staring, baffled, as Antoine Rotelli groaned in pain on Oswald’s table.

“...That….what the fuck was that supposed to be?!” Maroni shouted first, his voice soon to be joined by others demanding answers, demanding action, demanding demanding demanding-

And all the while, Oswald stared out at his casino, his palace, his sanctuary that the Batman had violated with such brazen impunity. He felt his hands clenched into fists as a familiar rage built inside of him at his _humiliation_. 

“Candace.”

“A-Ah, ow...y-y-yeah boss?” 

“Contact Floyd Lawton. I have a man I want dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, it's definitely been a while. This is actually my first post for this story this year. Huh.
> 
> Indi: hope you enjoyed
> 
> Yep! Thank you very much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed. Not sure how often this'll be updated, but I've got a lot of ideas planned. Thanks again, and please, leave a comment if you enjoyed or just feel like it.
> 
> Indi:Thanks for reading this story! I hope you enjoy reds original take on a batman story, and as he said he has plenty of interesting ideas!


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